SI issues

[mlentzner]

Ever had to deal with SI issues with yourself or your clients? It's the bane of my existence right now, and I'm open to any ideas or suggestions.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Copious amounts of ibuprofen, fix your squat and/or deadlift form, and might have to back off your training a bit either in volume, frequency, intensity or a little of each. That's about it really. Ibuprofen is your best friend though.

[melody]

Chiropractor and form correction fixed mine.

[DCP]

I sprained my SI joint in the first week of January and am still working through it. Was squatting 315x3 for intensity day and felt something weird in the warmups but decided to try it anyway, bad idea and I was in pretty bad pain getting up and lying down for a week. Tried training on it but could only do empty bar for a week or two, I have slowly ramped it up to 250x5 yesterday. I am still not sure what form issue caused it but I may have had an uneven stance on a heavy warmup that screwed it up. Like Andy said the only thing that really helps is to ease off on volume and intensity and batter it into submission with ibuprofen. Just be patient and train what is trainable.

[mlentzner]

When I first was looking into SI injuries I read that it was far more common among women than men and was associated with pregnancy when the hip ligaments relax. I have to admit this was a blow to my manhood. I feel a bit better that is seems to be not uncommon among those who squat heavy.

I have suffered with chronic lower back pain most of my life - long before I started lifting. It wasn't an acute injury in my case, but a chronic problem I had that lifting made worse. A chiro did correctly diagnose it for me. His treatments seemed pretty ineffective though so I stopped seeing his after a couple months.

Recently, I stopped squatting completely for about 3 weeks and have been slowly reintroducing it with light weights and noting the reactions. I recently back squatted 275x3x3 which was super easy, but even though my form was rock-solid that was heavy enough to cause a flareup. This pisses me off.

I'm considering not back squatting heavy (much more than BW) at all anymore. I can front squat with no problem. I'm going to be testing out deadlifting to see how heavy I can pull without irritating my SI. If I'm cool there than I'm thinking that I can develop the posterior chain with deads. Don't tell Rip I said this. :)

[gmarso]

I had my SI Joint flare up last May. It is a recurring injury that first flared up 15 years ago during high school track (shot and disc) After a summer of being fine and flare ups I went to a physical therapist in August. He had me lay off it for a month, gave me some "core" exercises, and then told me to work back slow. I am back better than ever. I hate to admit it but the PT and the "core" work helped. His opinion was I would probably always have problems but that is what aleve is for. I know core work isn't popular on these boards but I feel the 15 - 20 minutes a week I spend on it are worth the time. Sure doesn't hurt.

[mlentzner]

I had my SI Joint flare up last May. It is a recurring injury that first flared up 15 years ago during high school track (shot and disc) After a summer of being fine and flare ups I went to a physical therapist in August. He had me lay off it for a month, gave me some "core" exercises, and then told me to work back slow. I am back better than ever. I hate to admit it but the PT and the "core" work helped. His opinion was I would probably always have problems but that is what aleve is for. I know core work isn't popular on these boards but I feel the 15 - 20 minutes a week I spend on it are worth the time. Sure doesn't hurt.

What are you doing for the core work?

[gmarso]

What are you doing for the core work?

I started off doing exercises similar to this http://sportsmedicineofatlanta.com/downloads/reference/Biomechanics%20Primary%20Core%20Stability%20Protoc ol%20030409.pdf

(You can also google Sahrmann for similar stuff)

These seem very simple but for were very hard for me to master at first. I went to the PT about 5 times over an 8 - 10 week period and each time he gave me more progressively challenging exercises like these. This seems like silly PT stuff but it worked for me and I noticed differences when I deadlift, press, and squat almost immediately.

He also had me do back extensions - Just lie down on the floor and pick up the upper trunk without lifting your legs (have someone hold them if necessary) When I first started I could only hold this for 24 seconds. The PT said to work up to 3:00 but after that there wasn't any benefit. This took a while to get to but now they are easy and I only do them once a week for 3:00 minutes.

Currently, I don't do any of the Sahrmann exercises but stick to versions of front planks, side planks, and sit-ups. I don't do the sit-ups for any other reason than that I'm old school and like doing them. If you google "Building the Soldier Athlete" there is a good pdf out there on plank exercises, progressions, and standards.

The PT also emphasized that I will probably have issues the rest of my life but doing these sort of things and just moving in general will help. I used to get big flare ups after long car rides, sitting at work (I am a CPA so i do a lot of this), just not moving. Sometimes just walking around during the day used to loosen it up or relieve a flare up. Bodyweight lunges in all directions (about 20 each way) and swings also seem to help in the morning.

I hope this helps.

[strong_over_matter]

I had si joint issues last fall from squatting. I was able to cure it on my own with a tennis ball. Lie on your side with the tennis ball on the hollow of your ass cheek. You will know when you find the right spot. Try to put all your weight on the tennis ball. It will make it feel better right away and after a few weeks should go away. Try the search function I found this advice on the forum. I think it was even by Rip.

[mlentzner]

I had si joint issues last fall from squatting. I was able to cure it on my own with a tennis ball. Lie on your side with the tennis ball on the hollow of your ass cheek. You will know when you find the right spot. Try to put all your weight on the tennis ball. It will make it feel better right away and after a few weeks should go away. Try the search function I found this advice on the forum. I think it was even by Rip.

I've done this with a lacrosse ball and it didn't give the kind of relief you're describing. There's certainly some kind of piriformis thing going on for me, but I can't determine if the piriformis is making the SI joint hurt or the SI issue is making the piriformis protectively spasm. I suspect the latter since the lacrosse ball doesn't help that much.