Hip Pain - help!!

[Grasshopper]

I sure hope some of you with experience can help me. I started waking up last night with horrible pain/cramps in my left hip. I don't have hip problems at all. Today it's a constant ache/muscle soreness.

It could be riding but I'm not sure it is. I kicked up my ab training to strengthen my lower back and abs and I did a lot of lower ab workout friday. I sat on a bench and leaned back while pulling my knees to my chest. My legs were pretty tired and weak from riding so I think I may have put too much emphasis on my hip. Does this sound Possible?? I haven't been for a ride since Thursday so I dont' feel like it's a bike fit issue...maybe I'm doing too much at once??? Right now if I sit down and then stand I can't stand upright. BF is picking on me because handicap people are beating me from the car to the store!

It doesn't feel like injury type pain. But how do you stretch this area and what do you do to calm it. The joint seems to be agrevated too? Anyone experience this before???

[hibiscus09]

To stretch your hip, squat down with one leg's ankle sitting across the other leg's knee. Hope that made sense -- you do one side & then the other. Squat down into it as much as possible and hold for 30 seconds.

Cramping could be a lack of potassium or magnesium. Make sure you're taking vitamins. Also make sure you're doing plenty of stretching after riding and after lifting weights. Drink plenty of water also.

I wish I could help you more -- as you know, I've had my own stiff neck issues.

[hibiscus09]

Here's another stretch:

http://physicaltherapy.about.com/lib.../aa081501j.htm

And another:

http://physicaltherapy.about.com/lib.../aa081501k.htm

[Grasshopper]

Thanks! The second stretch worked well. It's the front of my hip that's wigging out. I bought a heat patch today and it's help a lot. The more I move the more it eases off - so I don't think I'm injured - just really sore. Also it's not cramping anymore - so that's good.

The hip thing was side tracked by me getting seven dust in my eye at lowes today. of all times....the employee was trying to rush me to the restroom and I couldn't walk fast enough for him! haha!! I'm fine now...but I'm sure I was a funny sight! Hobbling through the store, half blind with some kid dragging me along!

thanks for the stretches. I'm goind to do it again before I go to bed tonight.

[hibiscus09]

LOL -- the Lowe's experience sounds like stuff that happens to me! Glad your hip is feeling better!

[adkoch]

Ever since I rode the hilly days of Ragbrai, I get this nagging pain in my left hip now whenever I try hills. Has anyone experienced this? Maybe it was overuse, but I have been riding flats most of the time since, yet I am still bothered by it, even a month and a half later! Do you think stretching gets rid of it? Nothing changed in my bike setup...

~Angie

[williamtash]

Grasshopper

Sorry to hear about you hip I am not sure how that stretch
works.can you explain it again it sound interesting. Did you make your ride at the coast if so how did you do. Oh ya it sounds like you were the handicaped at lowes. Are your eyes ok you need them to ride to. Have you sarted school yet . Tell your BF it all comes around his turn will come and you can just smile.

[Grasshopper]

adkoch,

try stretching it out before you ride and each night for about 10 minutes before bed. Do you feel like you've lost any flexibility or strength in the hip?? Did it hurt the day your road or did you have ANY kind of injury that day? Any kind at all?

Williamtash - sorry I haven't gotten back to you...I'm starting school today. Trying to get all my paperwork and stuff pulled together - oh, then there's books to buy. Almost $800.00 in books later I think I'm ready to begin.

We did a modified coast trip this past weekend. We took the hybribds and went out along Oak Island and Baldhead Island. It was really beautiful!! I loved it. My mom even came along one day - an easy part of course. She hasn't ridden a bike in 18 years but she had a good time. She road with us for about 3 hours. The best part of the whole trip was cooling off in the ocean!

Now for the stretch...I can't seem to get this sight to open up but the stretch I was doing goes like this. Stand facing forward - feet shoulder width. Now, step back with left foot but use hands to push hips equally forward while you let your weigth settle into the left hip and leg. That seemed to hit the area that was hurting me perfectly. (it was the very front of my hips - almost as if it was my stomache). Hope this helps! - oh - eyes are good.

[adkoch]

Originally posted by Grasshopper
adkoch,

try stretching it out before you ride and each night for about 10 minutes before bed. Do you feel like you've lost any flexibility or strength in the hip?? Did it hurt the day your road or did you have ANY kind of injury that day? Any kind at all?

I have most definitely lost strength, but maybe the situation will be alleviated from my pro fitting, tomorrow. I will bring it up, then. I didn't notice any one instance of injury, so... seems a mystery. But, I will try stretching, thanks!

[missliz]

AAARRRGGGHHHH! I hate it when I spaz out and hit the escape key three paragraphs into a training explanation!
adkoch, you sound like you have a leg strength discrepency. Been there, done it, went to SI joint hell because it wasn't attended to properly. What happens is that one leg is stronger and does more work, so the forces of pedaling will pull hips and SI joints and pelvic alignment in general all out of whack, and the hills would really bring that out. The easy test for this is to go to the gym, get good and sweaty warmed up, hit the leg press. A free weight press is better if you have one. Get the person who knows what they're doing to help you if you don't know how to push iron. Make sure your lower back is flat and your form is perfect, use the mirrors.
Do a warm up set or two- I like a twenty rep set for leg press or squats myself, and don't be a ***** about the amount of weight unless it hurts your hip. Then back the weight down and work each leg separately- you will be able to compare and tell if one leg is stronger very easily.
If this is the problem, the simple cure is to do exactly the same thing two or three days a week and train the weaker leg up to the same level as the sronger. You can also do a drill on the bike by outrigging one leg and pedaling with just the weaker- in a low traffic flat place. You may be able to check your legs against each other like that too, but the leg press is really obvious.
I am neither a sports medicine doc nor a physical therapist, just know a lot of stuff I picked up from coaches in different sports and my own PT. If your hip is really inflamed and painful, or this test really hurts in a bad way (red or white pain), see somebody. (it should be pink and blue with butterflies pain) The longer you ride with injury the longer it will take to get rid of it. And I could be totally wrong about what the problem is- but this is a cheap and easy fix for this particular malady.
Best of all, work that press and you will fly like a bird on the bike and sprint like a rocket. Leg strength rocks!

Lizzy

Before anybody complains, ***** meaning wimp is a slang diminutive of pusilonomous. It's not a sexist insult about women's parts.

[missliz]

And now- my opinion on the Grasshoppers problem- which I hope has just gone away by now. If you were tired or overdid ab work, the hip flexors, tendons right at the front of the hip that attach the quadriceps to the ilia, take over the load. A lot of ab exercises aren't very ab because they involve the hip flexors more than the abs. The one you were doing will do that. You probably strained one of them, and a few days of rest and ibuprofen will fix it up. Stinky Ben Gay is good too. And heat.
Maybe you should change your ab work for a while and find exercises that just burn up the gut mucles with no hip flexor involvment. Really good ab work is SO onerous, but worth it.

Lizzie

[Trixiee]

WOW! I am so-o glad I found this thread. I've got the same problem, but my buttock muscle is involved as well. Any thoughts mizzliz?

Had a massage a few weeks ago, and that helped a bit, but can't afford regular massages.

I'm fairly sure I have one side stronger than the other, so this winter I will work dilligently with a PT to correct that. One more duathlon this weekend, then I will think about healing the pain, and correction for next year!

Thanks,

[missliz]

Well, there is something called - I'm not making this up- "pain in the butt syndrome". The ortho residents howl when I tell them that, but I got it from an orthopedic medicine journal article that popped up on the web. It's common in runners, and probably more common in riders than you hear. Are all your glutes going into spasm? This is one of several indicators for sacro Iliac joint disfuncyion, which is no fun if it gets bad.
Anyway, that joint isn't supposed to move- it's where the ilia meet the sacrum and it's corrugated to hold it together, with cartilage to act as a shock absorber so the forces of walking or running are dissipated before they get to the spinal column. Leg strength discrepencies or knee alignment problems, even foot problems can torque on the thing and pull it out of whack. Running on cement can give it a beating over the years, too. If you wail on it too much you can stretch the ligaments that hold it together and the joint will slide out of place. Ever feel like one leg is longer than the other? Thats a rotated ilia, and a PT with proper training can push it back in place. You can lie on the floor and put both legs up in the air and compare where your feet are. I can see an inch difference when I'm out of place.

Now, If this is what you have- and you need to see a pro for diagnoses- the treatment is serious ab and pelvic floor muscle stregthening, and your knees should be looked at for alignment trouble, and you may need to be looked at for orthotics. Do you over pronate? And the leg strength issues need to be addressed. If you know it's a problem, you need to be a big girl and deal with it. Just how bad the pain is is your desicion, but tear it up and you may need a spine surgeon to put in a shot of steroid, and they do that in the OR under anesthesia. I've avoided that, reccomend you do too. It'll stop pain, but you need to be right for next season.
You might seriously reconsider whether your season is over, that one last duathalon may really screw you up worse. Massage is wonderful, but it doesn't fix the problem. And you need to look at why you're so unbalanced in the first place. Are you compensating for another problem?
Some doc may try to tell you that it's sciatica or piriformous syndrome- the whole SI thing is much debated by orthopods but good PT 's have been treating it with good results for years and know about it. just warning you about this, there's a lot of hack orthpods calling themselves sports med docs out there. And it may be something besides SI joint trouble, but if you don't fix whatever it is and get the weak leg up to snuff, you'll get this eventually anyway.
Boy, I'm all out of breath! Hope this helps, hope it's relatively minor too.

Lizzy

[Trixiee]

Wow. Liz, you really know your stuff! I do have one leg longer than the other - that was confurmed by my GP last January, when I also received the diagnosis of piriformous syndrome. I then went to physio, recieved treatment for that, as well as orthotics for my shoes. That, and some serious work with my personal trainer seemed to clear it up. Now, though, it hurts a bit differently - in the hip and deep in the buttock. More like the muscle is tensed up. This pain started in early July, when I ran a hilly 10 K race. I live in a very flat area, and travelled to this race.

I'll be mostly resting in November and early December, due to work circumstances, but after that will begin a strength training program, with my personal trainer, as you described.

I wonder if some of this was brought on because I stopped weight training in June, when I was concentrating on bike and speedwork??

Thanks very much for your reply! Very helpful!

Trix

[missliz]

I know what I know because I have it, and after years I finally got a correct diagnoses. By accident- my PT was excited about continuing education and a paper she'd read, and was running on about it. And I said- but I have all that, and I bet this is how I got it... And thank god the spine surgeon was a South African Army Doc- they have first rate medicine there- and knew all about SI stuff. Apparently the whole rest of the world does. I went through months of 2nd rate PT for piriformous syndrome so bad I was limping with a cane, and it did no good, the problem continued for years off and on. I wonder if pir. syn. is a kind of bogus diagnosis.
Anyway, my first thought is that it isn't quitting strength training, running in good form and cycling will keep a lot of good muscle on you. Both demand core strength and create core strength. Maybe you need to keep those hideous endless 30 rep sets of some things that you do in PT in your summer training. Like crunchies. And you need to see somebody knowledgeable for a proper diagnoses. You need an orthopod who knows about this, meaning they've actually met a PT and talked to them about it. Not any old PT will do for treatment either, it takes special training to evaluate it and to shove that ilia back into place.
I still have a gremlin in my hip- I think it was out of whack so long the muscle attachments skooched over and my right femur turns out. It won't go totally straight.
Maybe you took a fall, maybe you knocked it out of place with the stresses of running or riding, but as two jocks/ patients comparing notes, I think you should look into this. It could start several different ways, but this is a chronic type injury and it doesn't just disappear. Do a search on the ILOR search engine, it's the best for medical stuff. I dumped all those bookmarks- I think I pretty much know all I need to about this!
And if you get straight,you'll get faster and just smoke all those other girls!

Lizzy