Squats and the dreaded Butt Wink/pelvic tilt.

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I myself am having a bit of a problem when doing squats and now being on the north side of 30 realize it could be a potential problem if I cannot fix it enough to do heavier weights.

My physiotherapist and I have worked on activating my hip muscles. Having no problems with deadlifts and lunges and basic squats without weights. However, i am struggling a little bit with front squats and am worried my back will get a little too sore if i continue with my current setup.

Any suggestions on squat exercise I could try?

Btw, i do lots of yoga stretches and holds to strengthen my core and hip muscles as well.

Front squats are my favorite. I don't really have any advice on how to make them easier, some people just don't do well with them. You might consider switching them out for leg presses. If you do them with a somewhat narrow foot positioning, you should get fairly similar leg activation. It won't hit your core like front squats though, but you could use other exercises for that.

Hip thrusts can help fix anterior pelvic tilt. You can do just body weight sets of 20. When that becomes too easy move to a barbell on your waist. I either can do them on the floor on my back or on my hands and knees with my shoulders resting on a bench and both feet on the floor. Hip thrusts, even body weight, activate the glutes more than any squat.

You also wanna stretch out your hip flexors, hamstrings and quads and strengthen your core muscles with some planks.

I find Zercher barbell squats great for evenly working quads, hamstrings and glutes.

This is really good advice. I agree with everything except I would strengthen the hip flexors instead of stretching them. In an anterior pelvic tilt, the hip flexors may appear tight but they are actually so stretched out that they are taut and weak. Stretching them just worsens the problem. Hip thrusts are definitely the best bet along with core training like dead bugs and planks. I'd also have someone look at your front squat form because it's a different movement than a back squat and it should be very quad dominant. You may just need a small tweak to get you moving in the right direction and it may not be a muscle imbalance at all unless you have an anterior pelvic tilt in your normal standing posture. I'm a personal trainer and I'm also a powerlifter so I see a lot of compound movements like back and front squats that are done just slightly incorrectly and there's often an easy fix.

Dead bugs, planks, and various other ab exercises have been part of the routine for months. It has helped with the problem. Body rollers have also helped reduce tension when i use mine at home after a work out (refuse to use the ones at the gym as they are either not cleaned or worn down).

The squat problem had the following points of consideration when i first had to tweak them regardless of front, back, jump, etc :
Feet flat on floor; prevent knees from bending over toes; butt wink; straightened back when finishing the lift/push, or standing straight up (ie pushing shoulders back helps); hip activation.

Of course, one trick i have learned for hip activation is when doing squats with no weights was to hold my hands straight in the air. It appeared to force my hips to activate. I decided not to use weight on that due to my job being a physical labour job and my bosses attempted to scrutinize my workouts (they know i exercise) when I had to miss time due to a back injury. Well, my injury happened when getting off the toilet one day and that is how my physio connected the squats and hip flexor problem shortly after.

Last edited by aspiemike on 11 Aug 2017, 9:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Double post. Edited out