outer hip pain from deadlift/broncy horses

Hello all, I'm looking for some guidance on a hip issue I've been having for about 5 months. I started lifting about December and progressed well, starting with a squat of 135 after not lifting since my teens (I'm now 45) and was squatting 315 for sets in early March. I'm 6'1 235 and active. I injured my left lower back and hip doing deadlifts in about January. The pain was minor and I did not notice when it happened, but starting having pretty excruciating pain when transitioning from sitting to standing. My squat was not affected, but any amount of deadlifting would aggravate the problem immediately after my workout. After several months now of progressively increasing pain, I've had a month of chiro and 1 week out of 6 of PT. The consensus seems to be gluteal tendonopathy, but the docs are wishy washy about it. The problem is at its worst when I drive and sit in a chair for more than 15 minutes. It's not arthritis and there is no fracture. The pain disappears with activity for the most part but has been degenerative. PT consists of various hip stretches and glute excercises, and torturing it with a foam roller and dry needling. Chiro has not helped the issue, PT has just started. I'm wondering if anyone else on here can confirm the diagnosis, because the specific symptoms don't seem to fit any of the usual suspects of hip pain perfectly, which may be normal in its self. On an additional note, I ride a lot of young horses and spend 6 to 10 hours a week horseback, cutting cattle, roping and general bridal horse training. I feel the pain to a degree at the trot only, and it typically goes away after 10 or 15 strides. I took a hard fall off a 3 year old about a year ago, directly onto the hip in question. It hurt a few weeks but was fine after that. I heard on here somewhere that Rip had some experience with cowboying and a similar hip type issue and thought I might get lucky with some insight, as I'm not having a lot of faith in what the doctors are telling me, it feels like they're just talking out their ass a little. Thanks in advance.

Confirmation of a specific diagnosis is not what you need. I know it feels like what you need, but it will not change anything about what a good strategy would look like to get you back to doing what you want to do and reduce your pain over the next few months significantly. You need to think about the problem as a total load management issue on your hip. The entirety of all the activity that you are doing is exceeding your capacity to adapt to it. The problem is the totality and management of your activity, not that one thing in your hip that if you just fixed you would be better

In a nutshell, I would decrease the total time you spend on horseback to the minimum that you can and gradually increase that total # of hours slowly week to week. Start squatting and deadlifting again to tolerance. If you can't do one of these movements even at very light loads, choose a variation that is a tolerable place to start (ie rack pulls or front squats). If things flare-up in a specific range of motion, start with a lighter weight in a partial range and gradually increase the range week to week. To build your sitting tolerance back up, try to avoid driving in a car for more than 20 mins at a time when you can. I know a lot of people that struggle with this type of pain are usually in the car for less than 10 mins or greater than 45 mins. At 10 mins they feel nothing, and 45 mins they are in pretty bad shape. You want to nudge the pain that emerges while you are sitting. Drive/sit until you start to feel it. Then stay in that position for five more mins. Then take a break. The amount of time it takes to emerge will gradually increase over time. I realize this is not the most convenient strategy, but I've seen it work pretty well.

If you need specific advice on how to implement the above suggestions, that's consult territory. A good strategy for how to deal with this type of thing will be similar in structure even if the specific reccomendations differ.