Hip/Groin/Back Pain?

From my experience, you have probably have an alignment problem. Your spine is probably not straight due to poor posture. This forces the rest of your body to adjust, either by lengthening or shortening, to keep both feet on the ground, and to maintain level vision.

Check the following:

1) Is your neck craning forward and head carried too far forward from your shoulders?

2) Are your shoulders level, or is one side higher and tighter?

3) Is your pelvis level, or tilted and rotated to one side?

4) Are both your legs the same length?

5) Do both your feet point in the same direction when you stand at your most comfortable? Do they point the same direction when you walk or run?

If you right side is problematic now, then my guess is that your right shoulder is higher/tighter; your right leg is at least functionally, if not anatomically, shorter; your right groin is tight and weak; your right pelvis is lower and rotated anteriorly toward the left. When you walk or run your right leg tends to over-pronate, and your left foot most likely to supinate.

All these issues can be caused by poor posture, running on the same slanted side of the road all the time, running round a track in the same direction always, slouching when seated which weakens tranverse abdominus and glutes, etc.

Check out the above 5 points yourself or with a knowledgeable physician and see what you can do next. But I would say nearly 100% its caused by poor postural alignment which messes up your pelvis/hips. Nerves would then be easily impinged which results in pain or numbness and/or loss of coordination.

This is an increasingly prevalent problem in sedentary modern society, whether trained runners or not. I hope you find the above helpful in some way.

I had some similar issues in 2007. It started with some mild groin discomfort, which I thought was a hernia. Google osteitis pubis. I believed that mine started as this and I continued to run, which made matters worse. The pain was always manageable and after the doc said that I had no hernia, I continued to run. After 5-6 months, I noticed hip pain (deep), near piriformis muscle. Again, I thought it was piriformis syndrome and did stretches, but no help. The pain then went to my low back and (spasms) and I was diagnosed with sacral sfx. The actual point where I had the sfx didn't hurt or was tender. Most of my pain, at that time, was in my low back and hip.

what would you suggest to fix this?

The sfx took about six weeks of not running. Again, google osteitis pubis. There are a number of different causes and "fixes." Unfortunately, mine never got "fixed", which may have lead to the sfx.

Had very similar issues. Pain just moved around from the back, butt, hip, outside hip, flexor and down the leg. Spent 2-4 months on the DL every year for four years. Turns out some kid in a shoe store told me that my left leg is probably longer from just watching me walk. Said my leg swings out. Since then a lot of people have commented on the left shoulder being higher when I bring it up. I tried an insert but it just felt funny. Didn't know what to do but I knew that pressure, like stairs hurt it. Sharper the force the more the pain. I cut all hard runs, moved to grass and trails only, and moved to a forefoot strike. I did vibrams and barefoot in the grass to get used to the forefoot strike and now do it(minimalism) about a fifth of the time. Ran very very slow miles for months. It's been about two years now without any pain. Four months down was the worst and I was ready to try anything. Good luck and hope this helps.

Femoral stress fracture

Thanks for all the replies. It doesn't really match all the symptoms of any one condition. It's not a dull/achy pain, it is at it's worst in the morning and goes away completely with activity and/or heat. All of this leads me to believe it's not a stress fracture. Also I don't really feel it much in the groin, I think what I've felt there could possibly just have been from compensating. Basically I get a nervy type of shooting pain down my leg. It goes over the top of the thigh and along my inner thigh, almost feels like someone stretching the sking. it's not a deep pain and it's pretty vague. This is also accompanied by a bit of tightness and a similar pain in the low back.

I'm leaning towards it being either a minor sciatic thing or a minor strain of something that is causing me to alter my form slightly and in turn causing these problems.

I should also add that I have no range of motion tightness, weakeness or pain. I can lay on the floor and move the leg anywhere without tightness or replication of the symptoms. I can also stand with no problem. Then only time I get the sensation if when walking or running before it warms up. Also there is no clicking or anything else.

I ran about 50 miles including speedwork the past three days without making it worse. Taking it easy for a few days to try and put this behind me.

That sounds like mine.. The stuff around the hip, groin and back weren't that bad, kind of dull, shifted around, but then it started going down the leg. Sharp pain and I couldn't place it. It didn't feel like it was the bone, but I couldn't narrow it to a muscle either. Kind of felt like it was... Around the bone? As it got worse I got dull throbs in my knee as well. Anyway, hope it get's better man.

Foomiler,

Your description fits me like a 'T'and notice some differences in all 5 things on your checklist. I'm in a ditch now and nothing seems to be working. My x-rays and MRI's have been negative.

As you stated, posture is a big issue and probably my problem. I do sit a lot in front of a computer to do most of my work (schooling and recreational internet browsing) there.

What did you end up doing? Are you healthy now? How long did it take you to be pain free?

popcorn wrote:

Foomiler,

Your description fits me like a 'T'and notice some differences in all 5 things on your checklist. I'm in a ditch now and nothing seems to be working. My x-rays and MRI's have been negative.

As you stated, posture is a big issue and probably my problem. I do sit a lot in front of a computer to do most of my work (schooling and recreational internet browsing) there.

What did you end up doing? Are you healthy now? How long did it take you to be pain free?

I tried several things before realising that on the practical level, we need to work on obtaining and maintaining good posture. You can refer to Pilates and Alexander Technique for a more refined understanding.

Beginning from the head and neck, you need to lengthen the back of your neck such that your chin tips down toward your chest, or becomes level with the ground. This should not be forced and you should not feel tension. Make incremental adjustments over time.

With the shoulders, you need to keep them down toward your hips, thus creating a sort of bottleneck shape with your head-neck-shoulders. When this is achieved you have released a lot of tension in your body, freeing nerves to fire. You should also feel your waist shrinking.

Next you should focus on your transverse abdominus (TVA). This is a deeper abdominal muscle that runs round your mid-section like a corset. One of its key functions is to stabilse your spine. The way to train and activate it is to pull your navel toward your spine, after establishing and maintaining the above cues with the head and shoulders.

You don't need to be tensing your abs all day long to get the effect, but by lengthening your spine from your neck/head and lowering your shoulders, you will find that your navel is already moving very near your spine. From thereon its just a subtle pressure needed to engage the TVA.

The way you move comes next. Do not reach out with your legs when you walk or run. Let your trunk move first and follow this with your legs. Keep knees unlocked and slightly bent. If you do this with the TVA engaged, your glutes will activate normally, thus freeing up your hip flexors and low back to function without unhealthy loads.

What you have done with your neck and head is to unload the hips, making the spine responsible for holding up your entire frame rather than resting it entirely on your pelvis, which is what happens when we slouch. Together with an active TVA, you get stability at your core area. Add to that a proper movement system you get healthy gluteal activity which is the key to many back,knee, hamstring, achilles problems. But remember that it all begins with your upper body.

Strengthening your TVA will come as you practice the above postural cues. But if you wish to isolate and train it on its own, you can try pulling in your navel to your spine in various bodily positions, like supine, prone, side plank, standing on one or two legs, when you are doing bench presses or sit ups, etc. Google "transverse abdominus" or "low back injury treatment" and you should find exercises on TVA recommended by professionals.

For very detailed discussion on this, look for the thread "loss of coordination in leg", esp the posts by "Runner PT". (You can read some of my later posts there if you wish, but remember I'm just a layman sharing his personal experience and could fall short on certain issues.)

I've been plagued by this problem on and off for about 12 years, but it got really really bad about 3 years ago, when my right achilles, left knee and low back gave out. I frequently had numbness/pain down my left shoulder to my butt/hamstring/foot. Nothing worked; not stretching or strengthening or resting or massage, etc. Not till 2 years ago when I realised from reading up on Pilates, Egoscue Method, Alexander Technique and the Pose Method, that my posture was the root problem. But the journey to wellness didn't just end there.

It took may agonising months of trying and trying before I grasped what these experts were talking about. The phrase "pulling your navel toward your spine" isn't as transparent as it seems. You need to experiment and be patient because its a lifestyle change. Its also a lifelong discipline to commit to good posture.

Today I am way better and can run without pain, but I'm still prone to relapses from time to time esp when I feel tired and can't really concentrate. So one thing to note is part of this whole process is to cut back on unhealthily stressful activities and never over-extend yourself in any thing. Overly ambitious runners or trainers usually find it hard to get better.

This is basically a neuromuscular issue which requires one to be mentally fresh as far as our lifestyle permits. Trying to win the rat race of the corporate/academic world all the time is going to see you hanging your head too forward and rounding you shoulders and upper back in front of your PC/laptop far too frequently. All this is going to lessen your breathing capacity, leaving you tired all the time, and slowing down your normal recovery rate.

So part of this issue means for us to take more time off to chill.

My hips rotate when my hamstrings get too tight from training, causing one leg to be longer than the other. This caused a hip flexor tear in one leg and a SF in the other. I was refered to a chiropractor and he just did a simple adjustment everyother month and told me to up the core work/drills.

I'd say it's possible that this is your problem. Go see a sports chiro and find out. It only costs $40 a visit for me.

I was told that my problem was a lack of core strength. I started doing 30mins of basic core stuff 3-4 times a week and added hill bounding, high knees, butt kicks, lunges and box jumps after 2 easy runs each week, Along with 6 adjustments a year from the chiro. I haven't been injured in the 2 years since the back to back hip flexor-SF. The drills also contributed to a 3 sec 400m PR, I believe.

-STS

It does sound like an alignment problem....I would try Pilates or even working with someone who has trained in the Egoscue method. You might want to go take a class somewhere, and somewhere that has mirrors so that you can actually see what you are doing, and how it should be done correctly. Alignment and posture issues are corrected easily, but it is more effective when someone can guide you through the process until you learn the moves correctly.

Thanks for the information foomiler. I'm going to check out some of the techniques and methods you mentioned and give it a shot.

I have a very tight right shoulder. When looking in a mirror, you can tell it rests higher than the left side. But even when i try to droop/ relax the shoulder, it's still tight. I always find myself with this shoulder tensing towards my ear and once i think about it, i can relax it a bit but it's still tight.

Have you ever tried accupuncture for for initial relaxation? Possibly a jump start to things?

I got rid of my 'office chair' I use at home and currently sitting on a stability ball. I can already see a difference w/ the aching spine having to keep good posture. I have done this in the past but never did fully heal.