Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here? Updated your week’s training in the comments. If you had any PR’s, let us know about them.
Paul Sousas attack in numbers
Weekly Challenge
Last week’s challenge basically said, “How much butter can you eat, punk?” I’m told there are some interesting communities online that pride themselves on their butter consumption. Eating more butter increases the amount of fat calories consumed. High-fat diets, particularly animal fat, promote higher testosterone and hormone productions — fat and cholesterol are the building blocks of hormones, after all. Eating fat also helps improve insulin sensitivity since it will usually be combined with a change in carbohydrate consumption. Greater amounts of animal fat allow for better recovery and bulking, but they also help a lifter get lean by avoiding carb calories as well as avoiding unnecessary fat gain when trying to bulk. Aside from adequate protein, fat consumption is the best method to recover from training and stay lean. My friend Gant always used to say, “Eat protein to maintain or build muscle, eat fat to recover, and only eat enough carbs to fuel your activity level.”
Next Week’s Challenge: Learn about a specific muscle group that gives you problems in training. Learn how it functions as well as what you can do to improve the problem. Share your findings in next week’s comments.
Week In Review
On Monday a bunch of people that are sensitive to vegetarians thought that I would give a shit what they had to say when I wrote this piece. There isn’t anything anyone could say to change my mind because a vegetarian will simply not lead as healthy a life as they could, and they certainly won’t be able to reap the benefits of their training. If they thought research on the human body was so comprehensive and correct, then they are free to go and eat whole grains as 75% of their diet for a year and let me know how that goes. QED. On Tuesday I pointed out that rotating your toes forward for the squat is dependent on having the mobility to do so. Wednesday I started a series that shows a continuum of how to learn about strength and conditioning. This particular post was focused on several very good anatomy books; anatomy is the foundation for coaching and programming. I also sent out the first issue of the 70’s Big Insider Newsletter today. Normally these won’t be available to non-subscribers, but today you can get a view of the newsletter (this preview link will be taken down tomorrow).
this is siituational (not me, just hypothetical). What I am trying to say/ask is:
if a client/person is squatting at say 45 degrees or greater but it is comfortable versus turning their toes into 30 where it is discomforting. Do you A) stop squatting (because the toe angle is so great despite no pain) and focus on mobility until they can move in? or B) hit mobility and using the short term change created have them slightly move in and squat (gradually working in)?
Dear brian45,
I wouldn’t expect someone to be uncomfortable at 30 degrees. Even the most inflexible people won’t need to point their 45 degrees out — it’s pretty excessive. But you are correct in saying that we would not want the person to be uncomfortable from a joint perspective (though they’ll probably be muscularly uncomfortable since squats are not the same as couch lounging). Use the toe angle that is “forward enough” without providing positional or joint complications.
Note that acute applications of ‘mobility work’ can improve positioning for that session. By using joint distraction to open the hip flexors (band pulls thigh forward when kneeling), lacrosse balling the external rotators, and stretching the calves and achilles a lifter can hit better squatting positions. These areas should be worked on regularly too, but it’s immensely helpful to do them immediately before squatting.
after my acl surgery and partial lateral meniscoctomy, toes forward is very painful. feels like bone one bone action. i probably should just stop trying…
To which I replied:
Yeah, man, I wouldn’t attempt it. Perhaps you could hit a different end ROM after a while, but it depends on how the repair was done. The ACL resists anterior translation (the tibia shearing forward) as well as medial rotation. That second part is the important part.
I haven’t wrapped my head around it yet, but when you squat with toes forward the tibia laterally rotates. The ACL is supposed to stop medial rotation, that would produce tension on the ligament. Lateral rotation on the tibia might compress the ligament. That might be the painful part since it’s surgically repaired and no longer normal. Perhaps the repaired tissue is getting pushed into itself, or maybe it’s getting compressed into bone.
Either way, you are right in thinking that you shouldn’t point the toes forward. Maybe forever, but at least for several months.
I’d like to know how gorillas get so jacked from a mostly vegetarian diet. Do they produce significantly more testosterone than humans or what?
Dear Daniel,
This is an excellent question. A google search of “how are gorillas so muscular” brought up interesting results. One person noted that a gorilla will eat an average of 18kg of food a day. Plus, they’re grass-fed brah.
Personally, I think it’s due to their fecal consumption.
Brandon S. asks,
I am transitioning to TM next week. My starting VD weight is about 65lbs less than my ID weight starting out. Should I advance the VD weight each week for awhile or leave it steady for a few weeks and raise it once per month?
Dear Brandon,
Do you have The Texas Method: Advanced? In that book, it talks about the discrepancy between the Volume Day and Intensity Days as a percentage instead of an absolute amount of weight. It’s hard for me to comment on your situation because you didn’t list your poundages, but ideally someone in your position will wait until his Intensity Day gets a a bit difficult before increasing the Volume Day regularly. Think of the VD as approaching “once every three weeks”, which is the recommendation in The Texas Method: Part 1. I’ll also point out that the first book has a process for transitioning into the TM, and it’s dependent on what your previous program was.
Well, there weren’t a lot of training questions because people were just whining and bitching about various things. Enjoy the first weekend of college football and get outside before the cold season.
Post your god damn training updates and PRs to the god damn comments, god damn it (relevant). Also, I would like you to share any injuries you’ve had in the past year. Explain what it was, how it happened, and how long it took to recover from.
In other news, look at this Russian girl’s benching arch:
Weekly Challenge
Last week you were tasked with doing side planks after training. None of you probably did this, but it’s one of the more important things you can do for both prehab and rehabbing — especially for lower back, S/I injuries, and psoas tweaks and injuries. Thanks for not participating.
Next Week’s Challenge: See how much butter you can eat in a day. In a week. Use this opportunity to increase your butter intake. I suggest Kerrygold Butter because it’s grass fed (this link will let you know if it’s sold near you). If you’ve been sore, achy, and not recovering well, the added fat calories will go. Use the measurement on the packaging to quantify your intake. Put it on potatoes, vegetables, and cook things in it (I’ve even heard of people putting it in their coffee…seems weird). Eating butter makes you gorilla-like.
I’m a recent reader of yours. I’m also in my third week of Stronglifts 5×5 and I am conflicted on whether to use front squats ion place of the back squats. I’ve been reading through the back logs of 70’s Big, talktomejohnnie.com, and some of Mark Rippetoe’s stuff and you all extoll the virtues of the back squat. On several occasions, typically in response to a question on programming, you have been adamant about training for a persons particular sport. Mine happens to be rock climbing, sport climbing to be precise. A friend recently sent me a link to a Steve Maxwell article in which he demonizes the back squat in favor of other squatting forms (eg; front squats, goblet squats, pistols, etc.). In particular he states that combatives, gymnasts, and rock climbers would all do better with a different type of squat. It threw me for a loop and has me thinking, “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing back squats. Maybe front squats would be more beneficial.” Especially if one of my reasons for training is a sport he specifically lists. Should I switch to fronts in place of backs? Do a hybrid of the 5×5 alternating between the two? Cycle one then the other? He mentions in another article, touting the virtues of the pistol squat, that back squats would lead to flexibility issues, a big negative for climbers.
I can understand your confusion. Let me point out that just because Steve Maxwell doesn’t know how to coach any type of back squat or mobility work to maintain or improve the flexibility of his trainees doesn’t mean that the back squat shouldn’t be used. I can only conclude these two things — that he is not good at coaching the back squat or sucks at coaching ‘mobility’ — because it’s not the case. I can back squat a decent amount, well over twice my body weight, yet I can get up on a wall and have the mobility to climb it. I may not be very good technically, and my mass or weight will be problematic in truly excelling, but my mobility is not going to be the limiting factor.
Now, n=1 is never a good argument, but strong squatters with good, athletic mobility are very common. I would accept his argument if it said, “The back squat puts too much mass on a climber, and therefore he should avoid it because it will inhibit his sport,” then I could understand that. You can be a better trainee than what Steve thinks you can be; you can be strong in a squat and still have good mobility. There are plenty of resources to use like this website or Mobility WOD.
So, no, I don’t think that you need to front squat instead of the back squat, and you certainly shouldn’t do fucking goblet squats over them unless you just want to be weak and small. If you want to be strong and small, then keep the reps-per-set low (under three reps) to avoid the mass gain, but understand if you’re a beginner you will have a bit of mass gain regardless. If you aren’t silly with your diet, you can remain or become lean, and this will help your bodyweight to strength ratio for climbing.
Keep in mind that strength is what will provide the capacity for you to endure in your sport. Continue climbing as you lift, but if you squatted 300, 350, or 400 and were within ten pounds of your current body weight, you would have a larger capacity for climbing.
Lastly, I’m not a fan of Stronglifts in general or in the context of you using lifting for rock climbing.
Hi Justin, I’ve bought book 1, and have a question:
Figure 2.5 (attached for ease of reference), says that, when pressing on Monday/Friday, benching is done on Wednesday. However, it says “light” bench. When benching is on Monday/Friday, pressing is done “medium” on Wednesday (Edit: image is below)
So, why the difference, and what percentages would you shoot for for the “light” and “medium”.
Thanks for writing a great book and for continually putting out quality information on your site!
–Brian
Dear Brian,
The reason I made bench light and pressing medium is because benching is more stressful than pressing. Light benching and medium pressing are closer to each other in stress imparted on the structures. “Light” percentages are probably around 70% and “medium” is probably gonna be 75 to 80%. Keep in mind that these are ball park figures and your true intent on the light day is to not interfere with the Intensity Day. Also, for early stage Texas Method users, they won’t really work off of percentages because their hypothetical 1RMs and percentages will change every week. Keep the Light Day benches and presses where you aren’t going to be sore for Friday.
Hey man, great ice post. Impressive work. I’d love to hear what you think about this:
After I saw this I went out and bought a $20 buffer to see what it was about and hit my legs hard. I’m in the middle of a new linear 3×5 program since switching to high bar and usually feel a lot of doms in my legs. I squatted yesterday and feel almost nothing today. My joints feel a little achy but that’s it. I think the buffer worked? My diet didn’t change, my schedule didn’t change. I even got a little less sleep than usual. The only thing I can think of is maybe I spent more time with the buffer than I do with a foam roller because I was excited to try it. Totally possible but I would love to hear what you think.
Thanks.
–Caleb
Dear Caleb,
It’s not surprising that Clint Darden’s “hardware store sander” suggestion is helpful. There is research that shows how massage is beneficial to reducing Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), which is the standard soreness you feel a day or two after training. Sports massages have been around for decades and are used because they help the muscle recover better (check out this clip of Werner Gunthor getting a massage in the midst of his training montage. As a side note, the minute or so after this starting point had a huge effect on my summer clothing style a few years ago, especially the beach scene).
This is the reason why the “self myofascial” release revolution got so popular a few years ago and it’s continued into what we now just sum up as “mobility”. The vibrating sander that Clint and you have used allows you to work on your muscles in a similar way to break up adhesions or fascia, or just generally apply a massage to increase blood flow and healing. Other tools like foam rolling, PVC rolling, The Stick, and a Theracane can all accomplish similar results. Let this be a reminder to serious, competitive trainees that comprehensive rehab and recovery will better prepare you to lift. That’s one reason why professional athletes can do what they do, because they have people automating this process and doing it for them.
@70sBig can you help me understand why blood vessels pop during lifts and any health problems that it may cause. Thank you!
Dear Matt,
When a person lifts properly, they are holding their breath and using the Vasalva Maneuver in order to increase the intra-abdominal and thoracic pressure. It provides a pneumatic brace against the spine and helps strengthen the torso to transmit force more effectively. Doing the Vasalva will increase blood pressure, but it’s something that our bodies adapt to, especially with a gradual progression that most beginner’s will go through. Some people erroneously point to the increase in pressure in the cerebrospinal fluid, but there is an equalizing of pressure up through the spine and around the brain, so this isn’t an issue (Starting Strength has an excerpt about this).
The reason blood vessels rupture, and produce tiny red dots on skin that is relatively thin (shoulders, neck, face, and eyes) is because the blood vessels are not adapted to the higher pressure. There have been several instances in my life where I come back from a short break (5 to 14 days) from lifting and pop a few blood vessels. This is usually associated with higher intensity (i.e. heavier weights) and the reason why if you try a heavy deadlift or squat without the intensity adaptation and strain very hard, chances are good that you’ll pop a few of them.
Keep in mind that when I say “blood vessels”, I mean small capillaries. And, no, this isn’t a big deal. It can happen with normal, non-training people (if they strain very hard pushing their car or dropping a deuce), but their cardiovascular systems are not trained to handle higher pressures and therefore it will take less to rupture the vessels in someone who doesn’t lift. Don’t worry about them occurring, but do worry about the more likely scenario: that you’ll pass out from not being adapted to the pressure change. To avoid this, just let out some air through grunting during the grinding portion of a lift.
Hello friends. Some of you may be new, and you’re welcome here. Post your weekly PR’s or training updates to the comments. If you have a training log, link to it.
This is relevant.
Weekly Challenge
Last week’s challenge was to do a set of continuous push-ups (no stop, no rest) until failure, rest 20 seconds, and then do another continuous set to failure. Record your reps in the comments.
Next Week’s Challenge: After each training session, do side plank holds (on the elbow) for 30 seconds, three sets on each side. If you have a wonky lower back issue, then note how you feel the next day.
Week In Review
On Monday we raised Ali McWeeny about $4,000, no big deal. But seriously, we had a review of her story and how she sets an example for not giving up, and then we helped donate a bit of money for her to get a prosthetic that will let her increase her activity significantly. Tuesday consisted of some clarification of some misused terms; I didn’t have to try hard to offend people. On Wednesday I provided a video to help folks find their psoas so they could give it a nice little stroke (yeah buddy). Thursday I did an AMA on /r/weightroom (on reddit).
You can find the “Ask Me Anything” here, and it will act as this week’s Q&A. I spent 5 hours answering questions, so it’s worth a read.
Other Stuff
Here is a quick 2 minute hip opener that all of you should find easily accessible prior to training. Make it a point to do it, especially if you’re one of these “I sit down for over four hours a day” people.
I’ve been thinking about bringing the weekly chat room back. Thoughts?
[poll id=”39″]
Don’t forget the fantasy football stuff. We have some spots open for the main league and need league managers for the regional leagues.
I’m doing an AMA (ask me anything) on the /r/weightroom sub-reddit. If you wanted a question answered for Friday’s Q&A, do it in the AMA.
Here’s the link. I’ll start replying to messages at 6:00 PM EST and will probably be there a few hours.
Side note: I am still going to do a post about the “MWOD/Kelly Starrett says to stop icing” thing, but it’s an involved post, so I’ll probably save it for next week.
PR Friday
Post your training updates and PRs to the comments IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YA.
Weekly Challenge
The challenge from two weeks ago was “Curl 40kg or 90 pounds for as many reps as possible at the end of one of your training sessions next week.” I did 15 and filmed it in case you goons were to get all aggro.
Next Week’s Challenge: Do a max set of push-ups at the end of each training session. Perform the reps without stopping (so no resting in the plank position). Wait 20 seconds and do a second max set without ceasing movement. Record your reps and post them in next week’s PR Friday post.
Week In Review
It was a short week due to travelling back from USAPL Raw Nationals. You can see meet recaps for the lifters in Part 1 and Part 2, followed by the lessons learned. The goal as a lifter or a coach is to always get better, so analysis and discussion is important.
Here is the awesome collage video AC made of the meet. Thanks to Elliot Rowe for doing a lot of the filming.
Q&A (Incoming)
Justin,
First off I’d like to say thanks for everything you do with your 70sbig.com webpage. You and your webpage were largely responsible for getting me involved with powerlifting and attending my first meet about a year ago.
I’ve recently been struggling with a snapping hip in my right hip, and just overall hip tightness/pain in the outside of both of my hips. The snapping hip occurs when I move from a toes pointing forward position to a toes pointing outward position. After digging around on your webpage for a bit, I think I may be pointing my toes out too much during my squat in order to compensate for a lack of mobility.
Unfortunately, my job requires me to be at a desk for several hours a day, which I’m sure isn’t helping anything. I’ve been doing several hip stretches at least once a day for a few weeks now with no significant improvement on the snapping hip or the general exterior hip pain.
Just for clarification, I do low bar squat with a stance ~6″ wider than shoulder width, and I do sumo style deadlifts with my toes pointed pretty far out as well.
I’d like to get your thoughts/suggestions on how to alleviate my snapping hip and exterior hip tightness/pain, and improve my mobility so I can move my toes to a more forward pointing position
Any input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Sean C.
For your reference, I’ve included a video of my squat and a few pictures of my squat and deadlift. By the way, I’ll be investing in some lifting shoes.
Dear Sean,
These questions are on the borderline with how much I can help. I have some PT friends that will add their two cents in the comments if they have time. In the mean time, I’d be curious to know if you are just having pain, or the actual “snapping hip” type pain where you feel a tendon roll over one of the femur’s trochanter (depending on whether it’s lateral or medial). You have two considerations: a) treat the symptoms of the existing pain and b) address the problems that are causing this to begin with (which are probably mobility and mechanical in nature).
You note that you sit a lot at work. Immediately I think of hip flexor tightness and dysfunction (this would include the psoas, which would be a part of the medial hip snapping stuff). Then you provide the video of your wide stance squat, the kind that is going to put plenty of stress on the hips, and I’m not surprised you’re having an issue. If I were coaching you, I would bitch at you about your shoe choice (we’ll ignore it for now), but I’d bring your stance in and teach you how to squat with more efficient mechanics. You’re going to improve the effectiveness of the hip external rotation and distribute force application across your thigh better when you do. It’s likely that you’ll be weaker in this new position since you have been training the old and wide way for a while. I’d tell you to suck it up, because what you have been doing got you into this current predicament.
As for your deadlift, I’d go ahead and have you pull conventional, at least temporarily. I’d assume you feel the hip pain during the sumo, but pull conventionally for a few months so that you can treat the symptoms. You can go back to sumo down the road, and the conventional work will only augment or compliment your sumo strength.
As for rehabbing the area, that’s almost out of my forte. Apparently the bursa sacs can get irritated with this hip snapping stuff, so I would do things to reduce inflammation as well as work on opening your chronically tight hip flexors. If you feel pulling — in a bad way — on the afflicted area when hitting the hip flexor stretches, avoid them for a day or so. Use movement to heal. Don’t be afraid of isolation exercises and body weight squats (with the new, narrow stance). Point your toes at 20 to 30 degrees and put your heels at shoulder width. If the pain is bad, this could take a month or two to start going away. I’d also try wrapping an ace bandage around your proximal hip (meaning it would be right up by your nut sack) and doing squat reps while wrapped. Be diligent with rehab work, and yes, I’d still ice it after the cessation of activity. Let us know how it goes.
Justin-
Hope all is well. Spent some time watching Olympic lifting over the last two weeks, noticed how incredibly fat some of those guys are…. beyond that I noticed how incredibly good so many of the lifters are at standing up for the bottom of the hole when it seems like there is no chance they will. Do you have any tips for practicing that pop at the bottom? I find that on heavy squats my ascent involves saying a prayer and hoping my diaper holds up.
Thanks
Roy
Dear Roy,
Yeah, it’s interesting how some lifters can be quite lean while other lifters carry a bit of body fat. As for their ability to recover out of the hole, well, that’s what they do every day. Remember that their max squat, front squat, or clean is going to be greater than their best snatch or clean and jerk (some folks will get near their max clean or front squat on the platform). Continue getting stronger and do the Olympic lifts, and you too will get to a point where your average snatch or clean will be easier to recover from.
If you’re high bar squatting, once a week you could “bottom out” your squats where you’ll lower down as far as your mobility allows (i.e. don’t collapse your back or hips). If you have decent mobility, you should be able to touch your hamstrings to your calves. Note that you should use less weight in this lift at first, but it will get you familiar with “bottoming out” a squat, which is common in heavier snatches or cleans. I’d still squat to regular depth throughout the rest of the week. This lift could even be done as back off work when you squat. Overall, just get strong in the back/front squat, snatch, and clean, and you’ll recover better.
Hey Justin,
On again off again reader of the blog. 37 y/o 5’11 225ish. Lifting steadily since I was 14. Moved away from boring gym routines several years back and got a bit into crossfit. Had fun on my own with it but never had the cash to join. I like the intensity it offered and I like how it made me feel like I was working out again rather then spending a half hour isolating my outer delts or whatever the hell I used to do. Lately a mix of metacon workouts and 5×5 work days. Just maintaining.
A few years back I noticed I had some nagging pain in my hip that wasn’t getting better. Trouble touching my toe, couldn’t run anymore, trouble squatting. Real flexibility issues. Finally get to a doctor and it turns out its pretty bad arthritis. As in, I need a new hip. Still going to the gym and lifting because I will have all new hardware in the winter so I may as well get the most usage out of the old one while I can. Just can’t do certain lifts because it hurts too much.
So my question for you is, what do you recommend I do and don’t do with the new hip? The surgeon, when I asked jokingly said I could do anything but 500lb deep squats. Have you worked with anyone that’s had a replacement? Or maybe there are some older lifters out there that have been through it. Would love to hear your thoughts, as I haven’t found many real answers from a doctor or form google searching.
Thanks in advance. And feel free to post this question to the blog if you wan’t but I don’t know that it applies to too many readers.
-Matt
Dear Matt,
Ehhhh. I guess the first thing is if it were me, I’d want to make pretty damn sure I needed this new hip. But it sounds like you’re pulling that trigger. I knew a guy that had two full knee replacements and trained on it for a while. Joint replacements are very good these days, but I’m not sure how to go about training on them. Without consulting friends who are smarter than me, I’d say just start with very light activity and progress into it, and ensure that your mechanics are absolutely solid. If your mechanics waver, I wouldn’t increase the load. I’d be hesitant to have ballistic loading at first and would slowly progress into that. I would use squats and deadlifts, but I wouldn’t worry about going heavy in them. Use them for what they are: great, compound movements that have a positive effect on metabolism, lean body mass, and strength. I’ll see if any PT friends want to share their thoughts.
Justin,
In the last month or two, I have had some recurring pain in two places that won’t seem to stay away no matter what I do. One is on my left hip, I guess in the hip flexor area, it hurts most when coming up from squatting, or standing up from sitting in a chair. Also the side of that hip and butt (sciatic?) is tender, so maybe some expressed pain from the hip flexor. I have done the wall stretch to try and loosen it, but it doesn’t seem to go away. I have also sat on an LAX ball to try and loosen the sciatic area, I’ve done foam roller on the quads but that isn’t particularly sore.
Also, my right ankle was swollen for a few weeks, I think I tweaked it trying to do a more toes forward squat stance because there were times I could feel a tendon(?) sliding over a surface. I finished a workout about a month ago with some 50M sprints and that is when the swelling started. It is not swollen anymore, but my ankle is pretty sore when squatting to where I don’t have much drive out of the bottom. I have been doing some compression band stuff with it, but it is on the outside bottom of the ankle bone, not a high ankle sprain area. I also noticed recently that my mid-calf is pretty tight and have been trying to do LAX ball work on that or general release.
I went to a chiro who just quickly took me through some stuff with the ankle, iced it and put the TENS unit on it. I asked him about the hip and he did a test and said my hips were out of alignment. But he didn’t offer much more than that.
Frustrating as hell, I feel like I should stop squatting in order to let it repair, but I don’t want to lose strength. I am ok on lighter weights, but anything close to my work sets is bad enough that I don’t feel like continuing in the movements. Should I keep working on Mobility for those two areas and just stick to lighter squats. Or drop squats altogether doing some RDLs and Leg Press in the interim.
Thanks for your help.
Craig
Dear Craig,
Holy SHIT are you guys asking a bunch of complicated questions today. This question doesn’t provide complete information to be extremely specific and I’ll also see if the PT friends want to take a stab at it.
First off, I’d think your ankle got sore from the sprints, not the squatting toe angle. If you weren’t adapted to full speed pounding (and if you tweaked it), then that’s why the ankle swelled up. Why the hell didn’t the chiro adjust your hips when he said they were out of alignment? Isn’t that his fucking job? That pisses me off a little bit, though there may be circumstances I’m not privy to.
Secondly, everyone should keep in mind that toes forward squatting is dependent on good mobility. I don’t know if you actually tweaked your ankle because of this, but I’ve heard of several people tweaking something (though it’s usually in the knee) as a result of trying toes forward. When you make changes in your stance, do them incrementally over time.
Third, your ankle/calf itself. “Outside bottom of ankle bone” is vauge — is this your lateral malleolus? Your peroneal tendons will pass right under the lateral malleolus, so you could probably start working on them with soft tissue work. They are on the outside of your lower leg. If you work on them, it could release tension under the malleolus. You can also work on your foot arches with a lacrosse ball, especially near the peroneal tendons and anterior (right in front of) the calcaneus (heel bone). I like the idea of wrapping the ankle with physio tape and doing plantar flexion, dorsi flexion, inversion, eversion, and just ankle circles. Don’t do it longer than 2 minutes and try to have it closer to 1 minute. Go ahead and do foot drills and band rehab. Yes, I’d still ice after the cessation of rehab.
Fourth, your hip. It sounds like you have scar tissue on your hip flexor and your lateral hip is tight. I don’t know if it’s sciatic related because if it was, I’d expect some referred pain down the nerve. I also don’t know that mashing on it randomly is going to help. I really can’t help with this as much because the location is vague and you haven’t given me any movements that cause pain. I would need more information, but generally speaking, I’d have some sort of soft tissue work (pin pointed massage), followed by stretching (if applicable), followed by movement (as rehab), followed by one bout of icing.
I’m still talking with people about the whole “icing issue”, and I’m sure that they will have some better input than me. Just remember that if you want specific help, you have to get specific with where the pain is, when and how does it hurt, and how long it has done so. More information is much better than none.
