Between todays runs I felt a pain in the right psoas, and now I can’t flex the right leg without feeling pain. I feel nothing when rotating the hips or the leg though, only when flexing, or kicking with a straight leg.
I recently started doing crunch-variations again after a break of a few months. I do the regular lying crunch with flexed legs and feet on the ground, a variation where I alternatlely touch each heel, and one where I lie on the side with the legs flexed.
Could this be a cause? I have felt no pain when doing them, not even today, and never have in the past.
The only other change in my training is that I have strived for a more “brutal” arm-action at the start. Brutal as in not nice and straight ahead. I’m trying to let loose more, flexing the elbows out to the side a little, not consciously, but as an effect.
Today I tried to keep that brutality through to top-speed. Maybe I overdid it?
Any thoughts?
What most people forget is that the psoas and iliacus are separate muscles with different attachments. Glad to see the distinction. You may possibly want to check to see if your hip position has been altered as displayed in an anterior or posterior tilt of the pelvis. As the psoas pulls as a hip flexor, it pulls equally hard on the spine so it can be painful if damaged.
Another thing I have done a lot of lately is running and marching A’s, both at home (in front of the mirror) and as a big part of my warmup.
The pain is located slightly above and to the side of that thing that men carry around, at the innermost portion of the thigh (the pain that is).
I think I know the cause of this now.
When in the stance for a standing start I have probably let the foot of the trail leg rotate to much outward. I do a little dip before take-off and that is when this has occured I think.
After a couple of days doing short accelerations without feeling any pain, I hit top-speed today and immediately the pain was back.
I had already planned for a 6 week GPP starting next week, because the speed-work I have been doing has, at my level, been nothing more than a camouflaged and half decent GPP anyway.
No top-speed and lots of stretching and strenghtening will be what I focus on the next weeks.
Thor, I’ve been training through that pain for over 5 months now. I have a constantly cramped/painful psoas. You certainly do not want it to get like I’ve had it, luckily you identified the muscle at fault early, it took me 3 months to find out it was my psoas causing the problem. I can bet your problem is in flexibility, I’m sure more then 90% of people don’t stretch their core muscles at all or appropriately, everyone just does the standard quads, hams, calfs, etc. Fortunately for these people they never hav any problems, but some unlucky ones like us pay the price (maybe it’s genetic inflexibility or postural problem or something). Get into doing at least a stretch for every muscle group of the core (adductors, abductors, flexors, erector spinae, abdominals, etc). And for the psoas I’ve found out that the only really very effective stretches need to be done assisted. I’ve tried virtually every stretch and position to stretch the psoas and I have found it impossible to get anywhere near the same stretch as with assisted stretches (ie lie at the edge of a table or bench a bit diagonally with a leg outside the table then someone pulls this leg down while pushing the other leg/knee towards your chest - heh, actually you won’t get anywhere near the chest initially). Keep me updated on any findings you make as I’m always looking for new tactics or stretches or whatever to tackle the psoas pain. By all means consult an expert if you can, you’ll also find out this way if you have a postural problem and some exercises could help you.
Yes, indeed, how could I forget that one. I’ve also been working a ton on core strength, but one has to be very careful, if you do the wrong exercises you’ll be inflaming the psoas even more! Damn psoas!
Funny thing is that I wasn’t even searching for this, I was searching for dynamic stretching stuff. Great thread for painful/stiff/creaky/naughty/misbehaving psoas’.