Pain (attacks) in left gluteal region on Days after Training

[Cor]

Hello,


27 years old, 5'11'', 163 lbs, trained the past few years but with several breaks and not according to Starting Strength.
Last two years before my problems started I did the following:
Working Sets of 8-12 x 2. Trained every 2 Days. First Day Squats, Barbell Rowing and Press, Second Day Deadlifts, Pull ups and Dips/Bench Press. Max. weights at squats were around 250 lbs x 3 , Deadlifts 308 x 3.

Discovered Starting Strength a year ago or so and started a few months ago with it, currently working on my technique of the basic lifts.

Never had any problems, but 1 1/2 years ago (before Starting Strength) I started to have bouts of pain in my left hip/gluteal region. Interestingly this attacks never occured during training. First time I bent down during the day (with some rotation I guess) . Then a sudden pain in the left lateral gluteal region. Couldn't put on my socks for a time, let alone lifting. I rested a few days and the pain slowly subsided and when it was possible I started training again and the pain eventuelly went away completely.

Around half a year later I did garden work, lifting a 40 lb stone and the same pain ocurred again, but went away completely after 2 weeks or so. In November last year it happened again, lifting a vacuum cleaner with some spine rotation involved. It got better after one week or two, so I started to lift heavier again. One or two Months after that i got another bout of pain again during the day, just from bending down and it all started again. Pain never went away completely after that.

The pain is located in the region I highlighted in the picture.
pain-267x300.jpg

On some days i can feel a near permanent "tightness" in this area (don't know how to describe it better), this Pain on the left side often occurs the days after a heavy workout and seems to come from the muscles there, but it somehow feels "wrong", not like normal muskelsoreness. Sometimes in my daily life i can feel a light ache if I make a wrong movement. Rest or reducing weight makes it better, but when I start squatting and deadlifting heavy (approaching my "real" working weight) it seems to worsen. Light weights don't seem to aggravate anything, but the day after a workout with heavy weights it gets worse (not during training). To me it seems like stress aggravates it and eventually the muscles in this area somehow stiffen and i get a pain attack . To be clear: The light ache doesn't bother me in the slightest, but it seems when i train with this ache sooner or later a pain attack occurs and I'm not able to lift anything for 2 weeks. Since I work in healthcare myself , I know seeing a orthopedist will probably do no good ("just stop lifting, take some ibuprofen") and a MRI has no use in situations like this, since I have no neurological symptoms.

A Physiotherapist I visited once a few months ago said its likely the piriformis and recommended stretching (pidgeon stretch) and sitting on a ball daily to relax the muscle, which I did. He said he could feel the tight muscle ( i do so too, but i can feel this cylindric muscle on the other side too, but there's ni pain, admittedly it's a little less tight there).

I reduced the weights und slowly added more (around 5 lbs per workout) and started using a belt. I'm now using heavier weights and the last days this light ache started to worsen again and I'm afraid of another pain attack.
The last months I tried stretching and rolling the muscles there with a hard ball but it doesn't seem to help extremely (doesn't make it worse either admittedly).

I will also post a video of my squat and deadlift in the technique section, but if anyone wants to see it here, here is also a video of my squats:

Squat_belt 1 - YouTube

And from the side:
squat with belt 2 - YouTube

Hope you can help.
Thanks in advance!!


PS: Sorry if i made some mistakes writing this, I'm from Germany and thus not a native English speaker.

[Frank_B]

There’s a lot going on here. Your back extension is being lost in the descent. It might be interesting to see your deadlift and how you cope with back extension there. I had lots of hip issues when I started that I attributed to shitty squat form. Come to find out, my lack of back extension in the deadlift contributed mightily to deep hip flexor issues. Once I figured that out, I haven’t had problems since.

Also, it’s a solid 10+ seconds by the time you walk out, get set, wiggle around, and then squat. That might work at lighter weights but with truly heavy weights, you’ll be exhausted too soon.

[Cor]

Okay thanks !

I will do my best to implement that. And I will post a vid of my deadlift.