I've been having ongoing QL pain for a couple of years now, tried lots of different things including GP, physio, chiro and it never seems to stay sorted. The main thing that has improved the situation is not exercising at intensity, it means I just have low level discomfort rather than it spasms / can't twist / breathe type pain.
Just started back to martial arts with my son, and loving it, but, guess what QL has spasmed again.
So I'm going to try and focus on sorting it again, but I want to continue doing sport.
Any recommendations for youtube channels / online programmes I can follow? If its a vid I can follow I do the exercises. If its just written down / book try as I might I can never stick with it. money is also tight so I can't really afford a weekly chiro / physio session nor do I want to wait several months for a NHS physio to be given a sheet of paper which is of minimal help
If anyone has a success story about suffering from chronic hip / lower back pain and managing to sort it out that they can back to competitive training I'd love to hear it to provide some motivation
My lower back muscles got badly injured in 2008, while I was working for the white goods section of our local charity SCRATCH, I was off work for several weeks and then had to take dichlophenac (Volterol before it became available over the counter) for a year while having to massively reduce my weight carrying limits. I became very reliant on using my Homedics shiatsu back massager after shifts when I became a postie in late 2009, but things changed dramatically in 2018.
I then started doing a few core muscle exercises, not long after I got into road cycling for fitness and chasing my times up the hills around Old Winchester Hill area...
The plank (building up to 2mins)
Superman (building up to opposite leg and arm off the floor)
The bridge (building up to single leg, holding for approx 1min and alternating which leg)
Within a few weeks I stopped using my Homedics massager altogether, except when I had a lurgy, which would often weaken my back for some reason.
Since long covid began in October '22, my back has got far worse because I've loss masses of cycling stamina and fitness. I'm now back using the massager approx a dozen times a day having taken ill health retirement from Shirley post depot ~16 months ago, I should be doing those exercises really but I'm not.
Yo.
I've been through all this, ended up so twisted on the saddle that I took 5 months off the bike. It's not 100% improved now but I can ride without pain now and only limited pain after.
I'm 100% sure it's one of these compensatory mechanisms where your body tries to make up for the inactivity of a big muscle by over-working the small muscles. In my case it is almost certainly the piriformis being long and weak, the gluteus maximus just being a bit apathetic, and the QL trying to hold it all together.
I noticed last week that I came off the turbo after a hard 4x8 threshold session feeling really good (back pain wise) because it had been the sort of session where I got my glutes firing properly and my pedalling action really smooth and controlled, so much so that I actually started feeling fatigue in the glutes as well as quads etc. Coming off the bike I had less back pain than standard and didn't suffer later on as I might have expected. I'm 100% certain this was because I got the glutes activated and working and the QL could relax.
The opposite side of the coin was a brilliant 60km thrash on the CX bike on Sunday, lots of roots, mud, short punchy climbs, etc. I felt great on the bike but the QL/hip has been painful since, almost certainly because I was too distracted by terrain and having fun and lapsed into old/bad pedalling habits, no doubt NOT using the glute properly.
Two 'quick fixes' for me have been isometrics using the glutes or similar, there is a sort of undignified butt squeeze you can do lying on your front with knees bent at 90 degrees (soles of feet parallel with ceiling) then bring soles together and squeeze them as hard as possible by using your glutes and hamstrings a little. The other is a wall sit, but make sure you are really using the glute on your painful side to support your weight. I usually squeeze something between my knees as well to work the adductors. Hold for 1 minute at least. I can usually get up from this and feel immediate but short term relief.
Longer term I think it's a case of simple rehab moves that aren't too complicated, you want easy moves you can replicate with good form, because otherwise your body will slip back in to bad habits. Clams are great but you really need to focus on the form. I WAS doing lunges but even these seem to tempt the form, so I'm going to step back (literally and figuratively) to single leg step-ups which are a sort of more basic version of the lunge.
Deadlifts are working well for me too, very light loads and it's taken me a while to get the form right. I use a step as a platform for the weight so I'm not challenging hip flexion too much, but still working hamstrings and quads. Again, light weights, high reps.
Finally breathing is really important, with enough practice you can 'breathe' a muscle relaxed if you can feel it tensing up. The basics are breathing in through nose, out through pursed lips (to give a bit of resistance and call diaphragm into action). It helps to visualise 'sending' the outward breathe to the sore spot. Sounds ridiculous and a bit 'woo' but it really works for me. Sometimes I've lain in bed and done this for 5 minutes or so and really felt lasting relief.
I don't believe chiro will do anything for QL other than maybe a bit of relaxing massage, but it's not a permanent fix.
thanks guys, nice to hear some positives. about 2 years ago I spent a bunch of money and time trying to get this fixed and in the end just gave up sport as it was the only thing that seeme to improve.
this getting older is depressing
