Upper glute/Piriformis/gluteus medius pain

[tzanghi]

Yesterday I did a few things that helped relieve my similar pain. 1. I took a baseball to my upper butt/lower back and rubbed the shit out of it 3-4 times for like 5 minutes. 2. I layed on a yoga block for 2 minutes after every baseball session. 3. I did some piriformis stretches I found online: http://www.ehow.com/video_4398858_pi...d-posture.html 4. I put a heating pad on it for 30 mins. right before I went to bed. Hope this helps.

[DeeLee]

These kind of things helped me tremendously also. Heat alleviated symptoms, ice did not.

[aporter600]

These videos could help. I just had hip surgery and it made my piriformis and psoas tighten up like hell. Loosening my piriformis and really opening up my posterior hip capsule area makes a world of difference. Some of the tightness will be hard to release yourself if the knots are way down deep in the muscle. A really hard deep tissue massage on the glutes, piri, hams, and quads could really help out. Make sure the massage therapist has knowledge of this type of thing; a lot of sports chiropractors and sports therapists either hire these types or can point you to one. But again, these videos are a big help.

[Immortal_k]

Thanks to all that have helped and replied, this is the best strength forum out there. After a solid month of cold-jacuzzi 20min sessions after training and increasing my squat (3x5)/deadlift (1x5) in reasonable amounts as to not flare up the injury; I am finally able to squat and deadlift a good percentage of my previous best without any pain. I can feel that I haven't recovered a hundred precent, but I'm pretty darn close to a full recovery.

My last training session was
Squat 265x3x5 No pain - easy
Press 157.5x5x5
Deadlift 315x1x5 No pain - easy

If any experience a similar injury I hope that this thread helps. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me a PM, I'll try to help with whatever knowledge I've gained going through this injury.

[tzanghi]

Glad to hear everything's getting better, man.

[Bill Whitmer]

I found this thread incredibly interesting because I'm suffering the same "injury". The post about feeling weakness/pain in glute near lockout really resonated with me (same here)!

I was reviewing my log and realized I've been having this pain for a year and it seems to be getting worse. In fact, every time I go heavy in deadlift or squat I seem to aggravate it . However the difference it sounds like is that my pain isn't as severe so I basically ignore it, think it's better, go heavy again- and aggravate it. Initially, I didn't notice that it bothered me except in the gym. This week, I noticed it after a weekend that included lots of yard work and walking (yeah, uh-oh).

In reading I think I'm going to force myself to stay extremely light on squat and deadlift for awhile (thinking 185lbs or below). I'll try the stretches and tennis ball stuff and see how it goes. Sounds like I need to really force myself not to add weight to the bar to quickly.

This is so frustrating. This is my third year after finding Starting Strength and now I'm no where near my best squats or deadlifts from the previous couple of years. Everytime I start to ramp up again, glute pain starts making me leery. Sure appreciate this thread though and the encouragement that I can possibly recover from this with enough patience.

Glad to hear any other advice or similar experiences!

[Victor Spirin]

Same problem. Have had it for about a year. First got it when squatting my max weight on LP. Got a bit better over time, but have only got back to 85% of what I used to squat before (120kg vs 145kg). I feel like messing with it with a tennis ball makes it worse; so do long breaks of not squatting (yet short breaks ~2-3 days seem to help)

Physio guy told me to do some leg raises with a rubber band lying on my side (3 sets of 30, to exhaustion). While it didn’t fix the issue it does somehow seem to help with recovery - if I do those on my off days, it seems I am more likely to get discomfort instead of pain next time I squat.

Saw a SS coach who didn’t seem to see anything obvious in my form that would cause this.

[hreed]

I found this thread incredibly interesting because I'm suffering the same "injury". The post about feeling weakness/pain in glute near lockout really resonated with me (same here)!

I was reviewing my log and realized I've been having this pain for a year and it seems to be getting worse. In fact, every time I go heavy in deadlift or squat I seem to aggravate it . However the difference it sounds like is that my pain isn't as severe so I basically ignore it, think it's better, go heavy again- and aggravate it. Initially, I didn't notice that it bothered me except in the gym. This week, I noticed it after a weekend that included lots of yard work and walking (yeah, uh-oh).

In reading I think I'm going to force myself to stay extremely light on squat and deadlift for awhile (thinking 185lbs or below). I'll try the stretches and tennis ball stuff and see how it goes. Sounds like I need to really force myself not to add weight to the bar to quickly.

This is so frustrating. This is my third year after finding Starting Strength and now I'm no where near my best squats or deadlifts from the previous couple of years. Everytime I start to ramp up again, glute pain starts making me leery. Sure appreciate this thread though and the encouragement that I can possibly recover from this with enough patience.

Glad to hear any other advice or similar experiences!

Will Morris put out a couple of excellent videos on back injury and rehab a few years ago.
Weight Training with Low Back Pain | Will Morris
Weight Training with Low Back Pain, Pt 2 | Will Morris
Weight Training with Low Back Pain, Pt 3 | Will Morris

These were very timely for when I went through basically what's described in this thread.

My rehab was squatting and deadlifting with just an empty barbell, 3 sets of 5, everyday for 6 weeks. Then it was linear progression, 20 lbs every other day, until I got back to the point where I required an intermediate shift.

[Robert Santana]

Will Morris knows a great deal about this sort of thing. Very good resources.