Started by Awesssss, April 20, 2015 · 10 Replies · 4,229 Views
I was just wondering, since manna work can make your hip flexors tight, can deep squatting aswell?
To improve on my squat, I have been taking 10 minutes everyday to squat deep and play with it. This seem to help my squat, but I am not sure if this will affect my hip flexors negative.
I am also working on my hip flexors, since I have problems with it, by simply stretching it.
Any info?
I cannot see why squats should tighten your hip flexors in any noticeable degree as long you do that hip flexor stretching.
EDIT:
Guess I was wrong 
This caught me by surprise as well. However after spending years now working with people who squat and lift seriously, the reality is that squats do indeed tighten the hip flexors enormously.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
They do from my experience. I am currently working toward the 2x BW squat while maintaining full splits. I do deep pause squats and have noticed my hips getting stiffer. I am doubling the mobility to keep myself limber.
It just a chance that a sedentary desk work is creating bad squats?
I´d like to share a quick story about this.
One month ago I started giving a Sundays gymnastics class for adults at the local Crossfit gym. We go over various mobility and strength drills. It came to my attention that vary few people in the gym could perform Single Leg Squats even though half could squat their bodyweight and the other half twice or more. I had the class go over some basic hip flexor strengthening exercises. Just a simple straddle with hands touching the floor and lift the legs off the ground. No one in the class could do it. Not one. Some got cramps and had to massage for 5 minutes. Goes without saying that standing hip extensions where well beyond their capabilities.
Perhaps it´s that their heavily developed gluteus are pulling the hip flexor back and tightening them.
I would say so. A lot of high level olympic weightlifters, despite being super strong, and more mobile than most athletes, still exhibit quite prominent anterior pelvic tilt.
e.g. Klokov:
Take a look at the demo athlete in this instructional vid (Jon North):
Thanks for the replies!
All I can say now is that this sucks.
I guess I'll have to "double" up the mobility for my hip flexors as Daniel Burnham if I ever want to progress in my foundation front lever and at the same time with single leg squats.
Kurz makes a strong case of squatting for flexibility. So while squatting deep might impact hip flexor flexibility it can be useful for achieving side splits.
I was always under the impression that you needed good hip flexibility for a deep squat... Now I am lost.
You do need good hip flexibility, just not good hip extension flexibility.
There are a wide range of hip movements, you can be be flexible in some and stiff in others.