Personal trainer/Coach

[jsn]

I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations on a personal trainer or coach that I could have look at my form. I'm doing 5x5 strong lifts and I'm pretty much lifting more than I ever have, but lately when I'm pushing close to my max, I've been having abit of knee pains on one knee, and abit of lower back pains. They don't bother me day to day, but sometimes when I'm playing sports, they feel abit tender. Not the good kind of sore. I'm assuming it's my form for either deadlift or squat.

Rather than posting videos and slowly trying to fix the issue myself, I'd rather see if there's someone that can help me diagnose the issue so I can fix it immediately. I know alot of the so called personal trainers at random gyms aren't always the most knowledgeable. Anyone know of anyone good and what it normally runs in terms of pricing? I'm not really looking for a long term personal trainer, just someone who I can go to a few sessions with maybe, and diagnose my problem.

[InRich]

I can come in there, under my gold package... its 199.99 per month, I'll come to your gym and get you working out hard... Theres a special this month for a platinum package upgrade for only 19.99 extra per month, which will include everything in the gold package, plus, me coming in there, kicking, smacking, back handing, and spitting at you if your not going hard enough... Its a limited time deal though. I accept cash checks or visa.

[max_boost]

What are your lifts at right now?

[KRyn]

If you want a real strength coach (no offense to all the bros on beyond) check my buddies out. Two of the best powerlifters in Canada right now.

http://www.pursuitofstrength.com/

If you want to do it on the cheap me and my buddy can likely sort your problems out. Send me a PM if you want.

[jsn]

Sam, my lifts aren't really anything to brag about, but it is more than I've ever been able to do before. I only weigh about 142lbs, so I'm a pretty small guy. I'm pretty happy with where I'm at though with the exception of deadlift. I just want to correct my form and lift pain-free.

My current reps for 5x5 are:
Squat- 230lbs
deadlift -225, although I've de-loaded quite abit and stopped increasing weight since I don't think my form is correct
bench press- 170lbs
overhead press - 115 lbs
bent over rows -125 lbs.

KRyn, sent you a PM.

[max_boost]

Nice. That's still stronger than most!

Kryn will work ya. I've seen their UofC videos. Scary. lol

[bigbadboss101]

I worked out with Ryn and a buddy for a few weeks. I got lazy but while training they helped me out a lot with forms, techniques etc. My lifts went from low to ok and had I continued they would have been rather respectable.

[Tej.S]

I'll help you out for free lol. Perhaps you could ask Warcaster as well since he's a personal trainer. He seems like he knows what he's doing too, he's not just one of the textbook idiots you see at most of the gyms.

[ArjayAquino]

I'm also doing 5x5 and my numbers for squats and deadlifts are similar to yours. I've started deloading my squats this week because I wanted to change my form a bit.

BTW, do any of you guys go to Cardel?

[liquidboi69]

Hey bigbadboss101. I'm the asian guy haha. Hope all is well.

Jsn, if it is a knee and low back problem, I'm willing to bet it's a hip flexibility/form issue. I feel that most people lack the flexibility to squat properly/to proper depth. And when they lack that flexibility and try to squat to depth, they have knee and or back pain. Here's how one would test that: Flex/extend your knee while standing and not moving your hips. Does it hurt when you do that? If it only hurts via. flexion and extension of your hip paired with flexion/extension of the knee...it's likely a hip issue.

[Tej.S]

Originally posted by liquidboi69
Hey bigbadboss101. I'm the asian guy haha. Hope all is well.

Jsn, if it is a knee and low back problem, I'm willing to bet it's a hip flexibility/form issue. I feel that most people lack the flexibility to squat properly/to proper depth. And when they lack that flexibility and try to squat to depth, they have knee and or back pain. Here's how one would test that: Flex/extend your knee while standing and not moving your hips. Does it hurt when you do that? If it only hurts via. flexion and extension of your hip paired with flexion/extension of the knee...it's likely a hip issue.

To add to that, usually when people have knee pain, it is often caused by the lack of flexibility/instability in the ankle, and not the knee itself

[BananaFob]

Originally posted by Tej.S


To add to that, usually when people have knee pain, it is often caused by the lack of flexibility/instability in the ankle, and not the knee itself

Interesting! Anything that can be done to counter this?? I feel that I'm running into this a lot lately with my squats

[shadowz]

Originally posted by Tej.S


To add to that, usually when people have knee pain, it is often caused by the lack of flexibility/instability in the ankle, and not the knee itself

Bingo!

Originally posted by BananaFob


Interesting! Anything that can be done to counter this?? I feel that I'm running into this a lot lately with my squats

Mobility is increased by a good warmup before squatting

A tight muscle is a WEAK muscle. I like to spend about 20-30 minutes warming up and foam rolling before lifting to help me achieve better mobility to perform the exercises properly with full range of motion to achieve the best results. Anyways... I used to think foam rolling was something complicated so that kinda kept me away from doing it for fear of doing it wrong. THEN I found out how simple it really was!

Just lay on top of it and roll the top of your legs (quads) from every angle. Get the sides as well (IT bands)... those are usually tight and can cause knee pains. Sit on the roller with one leg crossed over the other knee to hit the ASS (glutes) and grind it out! Then slide it down onto your hamstrings . I do them quickly and lightly before workouts and slow and hard after my workouts to work out knots. Hope this helps! Something so simple and easy can hurt sooo much in the beginning but will help make you a lot stronger.

Also when doing heavier weight with more sets and reps, I will roll between sets.

[jsn]

Thanks for the replies. Shadowz, is the foam rollers more of a warm up? Or does that actually give you more flexibility, or both? How would you get more flexibility if you don't have too much to start off with?

Liquidboi, you said if it hurts with flex and extension of both your knee and hip? You said to flex and extend your knee when standing but how do you flex and extend your hip to test this? I wouldn't be too surprised if this is the case for me.

[shadowz]

Foam roller does help with mobility, as well post it helps maintain the mobility or flexibility. Along with pushing the acid from the muscle. I do use it as a warmup along with high knees, air squats and other related stretches

[liquidboi69]

Jsn, extending/flexing the knee is easy ya, you just stand there and kick your knee back and fourth. Extending and flexing the knee and hip together is just anything that bends both joints simultaneously (deads/squats).

To extend your hip only to the proper plane/same way as squatting...the only thing i can think of is a stiff leg sumo deadlift stretch. However, most the time people do this, they stretch their hams and not their hips. So in order to get flexion/stretch your hips instead of your hams, push your knees out while you bend down. If you feel like there's something that pulls on your knee, especially on the outside part of it...which originates from the hip...it's likely your IT band. If it's from your groin, it's your adductors or satorius muscle. That's kind of the general rule in MY opinion. I'm however not a physio...and this is just based off my experiences. I'm sure real physios will know real ways of actually testing this.

When i have had knee aches, i also felt it in my hips pretty badly. If i sat in improved positions which made my hip bend less (aka less flexion,) it relieved the aches i had in my knee as well. I've never had knee pain which was not related to hip pain, but i also have high amounts of ankle and hip flexibility which mitigates undue stress onto my knee.

PS: alot of trainers advocate not to squat to depth because most people lack hip flexibility and strength to properly squat to depth without hurting their knee. It's not that lower squats are more dangerous...it's that if you don't have the flexibility, you don't actually use your hip muscles like advocated. Instead, to gain that ROM, you will have torso lean and or knee travel. And if you don't have the ankle flexibility for that knee travel...you'll be tipping onto your toes. So it is important that step number one is to gain flexibility (and not to avoid squatting to depth which has it's own problems.) #my02cents #notanexpert

[Tej.S]

Originally posted by liquidboi69
So it is important that step number one is to gain flexibility (and not to avoid squatting to depth which has it's own problems.) #my02cents #notabroscientist

Fixed that for you haha. I agree with what you said. Sometimes the biggest causes of pains/aches have the simplest fixes, they're usually just overlooked. Keep the thread updated Jsn, I'd personally like to know if & how you fixed your issues.

[theken]

solid hip stretch is pigeon pose, yoga ftw

I also thoroughly enjoy doing, works the hip/sciatic

[Tej.S]

While we're talking about stretches, flexibility, mobility, motility, etc, you might wanna take a look at Joe DeFranco's "Limber 11". It's an excellent lower body mobility routine.

[jsn]

Thanks for all the replies. I just youtubed deFrancos limber 11 and it seems like it's a pretty comprehensive set of stretches. I'll definitely give those a shot and see if it helps at all. Just need to go out and pick up a lacrosse ball. I'm definitely not the most flexible guy in the world.