[Closed] Anyone had a tricky hip flexor injury...

Yes. Had quite a bad niggle at the start of the year, once aggravated it was a nightmare. I think I had done a lot of running over the winter and not much cycling, and I must have done too much riding too soon when I started back.

It has gone now though, did have to stop running for a month or so, then eased back into it. Riding was fine, just extra sure I stretched out and loosened up a bit after. Hope it clears up for you!

What did the physio say was the cause of it?

They weren't entirely sure. this sort of thing can be caused by all sorts of issues. However, they did notice one leg was slightly longer than the other, which they seemed to improve with manipulation. I think the initial diagnosis is that certain muscles are very tight and need some work to loosen up.

It was the case that when I went in there the first time, the hip flexor was very tight. Doing some research myself, I've done the "lying face up on a table with legs dangling off the end and pull one knee up to the chest" test, and there is certainly tightness in this whole area.

Personally, i suspect it's a mixture of tight hamstrings, tight back and maybe some muscle imbalances (as a cyclist, I've never worked on my hamstring strength or the obliques (I think that's what they're called)). So I'm working on these at the moment.

I've got it at the moment. First I knew was very bad lower back pain early one morning at start of September. Physio has given me loads of stretches to do and has tried various stretches on me some of which have seemed quite brutal but I have no prior experience of physio!

Mine's not due to over training as I'm overweight with poor posture and lack of core strength. Think it's going to be a long haul.

Too much sitting seems to be a problem for lots of us.

I think sitting at a desk is part of the cause for me too.

It was really frustrating: I'd just done my first 10K race, finishing 30th out of 4600, and 2nd in my category, and I was looking at doing another one 2 weeks later. Now I haven't run for 2 months.

The thing is, I've tried resting: that didn't work; so now I'm thinking maybe starting from scratch with very short runs, i.e. around 1Km (anything more than that and it flares up) and building up very slowly.

I had one, but I think mine was a pulled muscle/sprain from squatting. Took about a month off from cycling + lifting, went to the physio, did lots of stretching but it took a very long time before I felt I was back to 100% strength. Honestly, after two months getting back into cycling and working out again (gently!) helped me more than just sitting around and stretching it out. The rest was important to get some good healing time in, but I think it would have been nagging at me for longer had I not started strengthening it again slowly.

I didn't do any running at that point - mine never caused me too much bother walking or doing easy cycling, but I think that's just due to how I injured it.

Mine took about 18 months to fully go. Mine was bad and I couldn't stand up and pedal, my leg would just kind of flop over the top of the pedal stroke. I used to race 4x and spent alot of time in the gym doing leg weights and pretty sure that's what caused it. I actually solved it in the end by purchasing a road bike and going for long rides just spinning. It seemed to loosen everything up over about 3 months. Very frustrating.

Deep massage was good, used to do alot myself. Really going deep into the muscles of legs and butt. Anywhere that was sore or tight and it worked.

Not saying yours will take that long. And hope it doesn't

Sounds daft, but walking got rid of mine in a matter of weeks after years of stretching etc not really doing much more than temporarily solving the pain.

Not just walking to the shops or round the office, I started walking the 3k to work and back, and another 2k in my lunch break, about 90min in total every day. Felt like I'd been hit by a bus at the end of the first week, but by the end of week 2 I was completely pain free.

Amazing how sedatry we can get (if you dont count cycling), the body is designed to walk big distances, I thought my lunchtime ramble was enough (its probably more than 95% of the office do for exercise), but walking to work really helped my hipflexors and back.

Both my hip flexors started giving me problems at the same time. Initially mild pain which got worse over several months. It was only after I decided that my hips were shot & I needed both replaced I visited the GP. She found nothing & neither did the Xray. Everything looked fine & the problem went undiagnosed.

Then Mrs Davesport who used to be a Podiatrist has a look & diagnosed tight hip flexors. It took a month of doing the stretches she gave me for the pain to go completely but there was a definite improvement after a couple of weeks.

Something like this here[url= http://www.mikereinold.com/2014/03/true-hip-flexor-stretch.html ]Something like this here[/url]

D.

That's interesting as I've labelled walking as a main cause of it re-occuring. Maybe I need to push on through a bit more (within reason, of course).

Cheers Dave, that looks useful.

Funnily enough, walking was the main thing exacerbating my symptoms. Cycling resulted only in mild discomfort; attempting to walk immediately after cycling was painful. Good luck, those stretches got me full resolution. I had nothing to lose but didn't put any faith in stretching. The positive results started fairly quickly so I carried on. I do these stretches a couple of times a week now....only takes five minutes.

D.

One leg being longer than the other points at tight muscles in the hips and hamstrings. Be wary of simply stretching your hamstrings though. Tight hips and glutes can cause you to improperly stretch, shortening the hamstrings to compensate for problems elsewhere. Include some sort of hip hinge in your stretching, really focusing on getting yer arse back without bending at the knees.

For hip flexors, the Sampson stretch is a good one. Also look at leg swings (stand up, hold a wall or for frame for support, swing one leg back and forward, increasing range each time, really push back as well as forward).

Those stretches are useful. I found mine just wasn't going. My cleats were quite old so I swapped to new and widened my stance a few mm (move cleat out). This seemed to sort it.