Broke my ass

[TTT]

...well not exactly, but close enough.

so, about 6 months ago, while doing a 1rm deadlift using a mixed grip, I believe I may have come up a little twisted.
in that the bar did not travel straight... the left hand (underhand grip)floated forward somewhat.
Being a 1rm, it was a slow lift and I felt a little sore in my hip area.

1 week off, and back in to it, all is good.

Recently, my 5rep lifts are at about 10kg less than what my 1rm was back then and that hip pain is back.

Went to a physio and after a visual inspection and some massaging and proding etc, he's told me that my sacrum and the first few vertibrae were slightly turned to the right.

he suggested that I must have done this a while ago, then adapted by lifting slightly off center so to speak.

I took another week off, then did a week of mush lighter weight to make sure my form was as it should be, and now as the weights get heavier, I'm in pain again.

Deadlift causes the most pain (not during... just for many days after)
Squats cause some pain but not as much as Deads.
Upper body work is fine

so to get a picture for you..
sacrum is the base of the spine area that goes in to the hip cage so to speak.
http://patientsites.com/media/img/71..._anatomy01.jpg

On that picture, the pain I feel is where the Ilium, Sacrum and lower spine join.

he suggested my hamstrings are also a little tight and I should work on that etc.

I'm thinking I will drop deadlift this week (friday) and see how I go.
I thought I'd post here to see if anyone else has had similar pain and if so, what they've done.

So... has anyone else broken their hiney?

[msingh]

yep. about 8 months ago. still have the problem now. there is stuff to do to make it temporarily better but nothing long term. Have seen 3 specialists, and all have diagnosed different hings with different treatments. Massage, walking, avoiding sitting and stretches do help. good luck..

[mitchconnor]

TTT I will share with you what I did to recover from my SI joint pain. I am not claiming I know anything more than the average joe on this stuff but it was my experience and I did not find many successes so I will share my story.

In the dark times (before I read SS) I pulled one side of my lower back/glute. I didnt know till the next day when I was walking around like a grandpa. I more or less waited for it to go away. I did not really train or knew what to do about it hence the dark times.

When It started feeling better I began SS and the pain kind of came slightly but I worked through it thinking that if I strengthen it it would be fine. Not a good idea. A good quote I have seen on here is let pain be your guide. I did not and started to do harder workouts and the pain would increase. I would reset my weights and it would lessen and once I started going heavy it would increase. This stupid vicious cycle repeated itself a couple times and pulled my groin in there squatting.

So I decided to see a doc. The general practice doc just threw some anti-inflammatory meds at me and they helped but were no solution. Went to go see a sports medicine doctor and he told me my SI joints were structurally fine but they were out of line. He liked SS and just wanted me to throw more ab work into it at the end. That worked to some extent and then I went to see a chiropractor. He did the x-ray deal and it turns out I had some out of line vertebrae and "catywompus" hips (he actually used that term). So he popped my back a couple times and that only worked so much.

It turns out I came into training with a muscle imbalance and I kept training and cheating reinforcing my muscle imbalance. This happened because I was corkscrewing in the hole and favoring my stronger leg and not knowing because I had been doing it for so long. It was more pronounced in the heavier sets. I did not notice this until I did some light front squats and could see the apparent shift.

WARNING:This may be considered blasphemous for this forum. The way I corrected my muscle imbalance was to do a couple minutes on the bike instead of heavy leg lifts to break down my legs. This combined with chiro and muscle relaxers made my back pain go away.
Edit: oh yea I forgot besides cycle and do presses for upper body I did ab work and reverse hypers

Moral: So start back out super light. Make sure you don't get greedy and add to much because you feeling a little better because you did way more weight before. Use perfect form. Maybe switch up to front squats so you aren't tempted to go heavy and whatever you do don't train through the pain. Its what worked for me take it or leave it.

[Tom Campitelli]

Seeing a good chiropractor would be a reasonably cheap and easy way to approach this. Spinal manipulation will either help, or it won't, but there are no meds or scalpels involved. Also, don't be fooled into thinking you need a perfectly balanced skeleton with no back/hip irregularities in order to train and get strong. Almost everyone has some of these problems, myself included. If you look at an x-ray of my spine, my sacrum is shifted well to the side and one or two of my lowest lumbar vertebrae have come along for the ride.

How much time do you spend doing targeted mobility work (stretching, PNF stretching, foam rolling, using lacrosse balls for self-massage, etc...)? If you are not doing such things three to five times a day, start. Try that stuff for two weeks straight and see if you feel better.

[LimieJosh]

Would you clarify...the pain is actually in the joint? As a result of a heavy fall about 6 years ago I have a very tight right SI joint with a normal one on the left. Pain in the joint went away withing about a week, but the pelvic imbalance means I now constantly battle pain and weakness in the muscles around the hip - right hip flexors and left hamstring. An intensive series or ART sessions and a religiously followed program of foam rolling (right anterior and lateral) and soft ball rolling (left ham and calf) have seen me finally push my deadlift up to levels I havent seen since before the injury.

[TTT]

thank you very much for the last 3 posts.
I will take the info onboard.

I don't stretch - have started this week.
I don't foam roll/massage using hard balls (no homo) - will read up on how to do all this properly.
Will find a chiro and have a chat to them.... the physio suggested that a chiro "adjustment" will be very temporary and be back to how it is within hours.
well that is how he justified his "manipulation" by way of massage and stretching anyway.

I might record my next heavy squat day to see if I favour a side...

I didn't to deads this morning. Instead I did Chins, then pulls, then rows.
then stretched.
I'll leave deadlifting out for a few weeks too.

thanks again.

[Tom Campitelli]

thank you very much for the last 3 posts.
I will take the info onboard.

I don't stretch - have started this week.
I don't foam roll/massage using hard balls (no homo) - will read up on how to do all this properly.
Will find a chiro and have a chat to them.... the physio suggested that a chiro "adjustment" will be very temporary and be back to how it is within hours.
well that is how he justified his "manipulation" by way of massage and stretching anyway.

I might record my next heavy squat day to see if I favour a side...

I didn't to deads this morning. Instead I did Chins, then pulls, then rows.
then stretched.
I'll leave deadlifting out for a few weeks too.

thanks again.

Chiro adjustments and their effectiveness vary widely between people, but they can be of help. If you get adjusted frequently, you may find that you hold that adjustment for longer than when you started. Who knows? My chiro has a book called "Milk, The Deadly Poison" in her office and spouts lots of pseudoscientific bullshit, but she makes my back feel pretty damn good and that is enough for me. Look up Kelly Starrett and San Francisco CrossFit's blog. He has a lot of mobility info on there. The CrossFit Journal is worth the $25 subscription just to get access to his videos.

[Phil Stevens]

I would suggest you contact and talk to Jay bell he is a soft tissue specialist who has jumped headfirst into SI problems due to his own battle.

he has a ton of things worked out you can do to help this including strengthening the lumbar and increasing mobility in the lumbar spine and other less fun stuff LOL

look for him on facebook and tell him i sent you. he has a cartoon character for a profile pic