My pain started 6 months ago while doing a 150m rep, it was a slight tightness/pain around the upper groin area that has spread all over my left hip/abdomen/groin/hamstring & gotten to the point where I can hardly walk.
Symptoms:
-Very sharp pain & tightness in lower left abdomen/upper hip flexor region
-Very sharp pain where the groin connects to the hip.
-Pain in upper hamstring tendon
-Pain in lower pubic/abdomen area
-Running at any speed causes pain.
-Sneezing causes agony in the lower left ab region
-Left hip keeps popping loudly when I get up off a chair or get out of bed
all my symptoms point to a sports hernia, however I went to a doctor about this & had an ultrasound & x-ray done which showed no hernias, both hips were also normal with no signs of damage or wear.
What the hell is this? It gets worse every day, haven’t been doing any training for weeks.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.
First rule out anything serious with your doctor.
Then make some assumptions yourself.
The pool won’t hurt you. Use the pool to work around the area.
You can mix varied lengths with gentle movements in the pool and jump out of either end to include exercises that contrast work just done in pool.
Swimmers use these foam forms they put between there ankles to avoid lower body kicking and isolate work for their upper body.
Pushups are a great add in for a pool workout and an easy way to rebuild parts of your training.
Have you been doing depletion push ups? = do as many pushups as you can. Time your break of 90 seconds , do as many pushups again as you can, and once again time a 90 second break before doing your final set of pushups. We used to do depletion pushups if we were looking for something intense because we could not get enough running or lifting done for some reason. You are supposed to be able to do 1/2 as many of your first total each time. I think my best was 44, second set 22 and then final set around 11. If your second set is higher than half then you are not trying hard enough on the first set.
Did you try or have you tried a hot and cold contrast bath?
Will someone share how to do this?
3 min. Hot at you can take it.
1 min. cold as you can take it
Hit all over including the back of the head.
3 times.
many have re-hashed what CF wrote about decades ago…do the cold for at least a minute and not 30 sec. like the many that came along long afterwards say to do.
BTW, Many of them have never held a stopwatch on a track lol
I went to a therapist yesterday who thought that accupuncture would be the best way to solve this. I noticed he worked extensively on the left hip flexor (where the pain is) & right gluteus medius, he didn’t do work on anything else. So I can assume that my right gluteus medius is overly tense. However I still don’t get why it’s so painful when I sneeze, it’s like getting a knife jabbed in me everytime!
I’ve done some research and it seems I either have “popping hip syndrom”, which is caused by enlarged psoas tendons ‘catching’ & irritating the surrounding area or a psoas strain.
In the meantime I will try the depletion push ups & will also roll around on a tennis ball to release my gluteus medius/piriformis
Thank you Balance for sharing once again how to do the hot and cold contrast bath.
I am fascinated with how effective water therapy has been for me. Happy fights ensued between my coach and I about performing self therapy ( ie esp water therapy) as a first line action regarding my athletic woes. ( ie = ange was too lazy to do a hot and cold so therefor no more therapy for her unless she did her part)
However, I was also taught something I find interesting when asked the question … why don’t people listen to tried and true methods we know for sure work?
The advice given = Just keep repeating the same message over and over and eventually some will get it. Some won’t which is why the service industry thrives.
Therapists are fantastic and very knowledgeable.
Historically professionally trained traditional therapists ( big generalization here I am making) will treat the " sore spot ".
Many massage therapist do the exact same thing.
Have you received medical clearance ie = had ultra sound, MRI, tests to disprove anything serious with your injury?
Once you have medical clearance then going to a therapist is the next natural step.
Does it make sense that the largest muscle groups are often the cause of the majority of our athletic issues?
What are the major muscle groups?
Hint. ( not our big toes)
Isolating parts of our body to treat is fine.
Personally and professionally I am looking for therapy that gives me the biggest bang for my buck , money wise and time wise as both are connected.
BTW , Major let us know what you think about the push ups. Depletion push ups are so much fun.
I noticed no one else commented on how many they can do, if they do and when and how?
Get two large pales of ice water and dip your feet in and out for a duration of 10 to 15 minutes challenging each time the duration of time in the water. Ideally try and get pales that go as high up as possible. One depth would be past the achilles, next depth to knee, third and best of all is just past the knee. ( harder to find pales that go that high)
Paraffin wax is next = dip both feet past the Achilles in and out ideally for 10 to 15 min duration. Rest the waxed wrapped feet/ ankle joint on edge of pales you just used to ice bath your feet.
EMS on your hamstrings and glutes. = Use active recovery mode on both Hamstrings and Glutes and do quads if you are able. ( you can google info here on the site about ems)
End with massage with emphasis on glutes and hamstrings and quads if you are able.
Failing this method find a contrast spa or do contrast bath every day for at least 3 days or more in a row. I might try one in the am and one before bed if I wanted to get a result faster. ( I used to always be in a hurry but what is important is layering therapy = varied methods combined are typically more effective than one chosen method unless the entire system is " treated" such as pool therapy.
I hope you try some of this Major as I would like to see if you are able to get yourself feeling better soon. Injuries suck and they don’t need to drag you down . Think of an injury as an invitation to get better quickly and tighten up your training routine.
Thanks for all the helpful advice Angela, I appreciate it.
Just an update: Finally making some progress with my hip for the first time in months. I think part of the cause has been the extreme stress at work, extreme stress in my personal life & 5 hours of sleep every night over the last 6 months, now that I am on holidays for the last 10 days my hip is actually feeling fantastic… strange. I’m pretty amazed by the almost overnight improvement.
I’ve been incorporating the water therapy techniques mentioned, along with actively rolling around on a tennis ball 3 times a day.
I’m loving the depletion push ups. I do them 3-4 times a week straight out of bed, great to wake me up for the day! Sucked hard at first but now I’m at 58 for the first set. Been doing some easy weights & slow tempo runs too.
Overall a massive improvement. Hope it doesn’t come back once I go back to work. I’m pretty convinced this has been stress related as I have been really chilling out over the last few days.
Stress of any sort destroys. I used to under estimate the power of stress. I will be writing more about it but I have tried to touch a bit on some of the tools I have used in my blog regarding thriving ( not just surviving) as an athlete.
Take a look at Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz " Be Excellent At Anything" ( the four keys to transforming the way we work and live). I first read an article by these brilliant authors several years ago and felt their ideas were aligned by how I viewed life.
Sleeping is a skill that must be mastered by anyone wishing to excel long term with health in and out of sport.
I am pleased you are getting some holidays that will allow you to see how much sleep heals us.
When you resume more normal training watch the depletion push ups don’t take too much away from your other training goals. We always used depletion push ups if some of the training needed supplementing and we had limited access to facilities for what ever reason.
Another book you might find interesting is Timothy Ferris’s " The Four Hour Work Week". Admittedly his ideas are out there but I will let you take a look but there are some concepts that might change some of how you view work . People that value health and fitness and athletic pursuits also have the ongoing and long term challenge of sustainability of life habits to make taking care of oneself a priority.
