Anyone with Piriformis Injury Experience

Injured wrote:

I have had nagging piriformis syndrome for several months now. Does anyone have any advice on how to overcome this annoying injury? I have been able to increase my mileage to 90mpw in easy running, but faster running always serves as a setback. I do the standard hip/glute strengthening exercises, foam rolling, and managing, but nothing really seems to be working.

If you have any thoughts, please. . . Discus

Am impressed you can do 90-mile weeks with. When you say hip/glute exercises - which ones are you referring to? There was one at my gym that helped quite a lot.

Mainly bodyweight exercises like donkey kicks, bodyweight squats, clamshells, and bridges. I have found that intensive rolling makes the pain go away for a short period of time, but the pain always comes back.

Injured wrote:

Mainly bodyweight exercises like donkey kicks, bodyweight squats, clamshells, and bridges. I have found that intensive rolling makes the pain go away for a short period of time, but the pain always comes back.

I've dealt with piriformis issues before. It eventually got bad enough to start pressing on my sciatica and create numbness in my legs. Piriformis is annoying to get rid of it. I looked up several key stretches on youtube and cut back my mileage for a few weeks. It did go away eventually after dealing with it for almost a month.

Im assuming you didnt have this problem before you got your mileage up that high. Not sure if you increased too quickly or what. Perhaps your shoes are shot. Maybe you need a cut back week. Or maybe your running gait changed slightly over time since the onset of the injury and this is the result. I'd head to a running store or have a friend video tape your stride to get an analysis of your form.

Injured wrote:

Mainly bodyweight exercises like donkey kicks, bodyweight squats, clamshells, and bridges. I have found that intensive rolling makes the pain go away for a short period of time, but the pain always comes back.

I had a lot of success with what I guess is the donkey kick at the gym but I used a decent amount of weight. Not sure if you have access to a gym but you could try that. I am not sure if just using bodyweight offers enough resistance to make a significant difference.

FL guy who runs wrote:

I've dealt with piriformis issues before. It eventually got bad enough to start pressing on my sciatica and create numbness in my legs. Piriformis is annoying to get rid of it. I looked up several key stretches on youtube and cut back my mileage for a few weeks. It did go away eventually after dealing with it for almost a month.

Im assuming you didnt have this problem before you got your mileage up that high. Not sure if you increased too quickly or what. Perhaps your shoes are shot. Maybe you need a cut back week. Or maybe your running gait changed slightly over time since the onset of the injury and this is the result. I'd head to a running store or have a friend video tape your stride to get an analysis of your form.

I have run this mileage for a decent amount of time before the injury. Plus I worked up to the mileage at a decent rate. The main problem lies with the intensity of running fast. I could probably run over 100mpw and not have many problems with my injury. However, I can not do any faster work. I have tried taking time off and that did not necessarily help. I actually had my gait analyzed about a week ago and nothing came up. Good advice though, thanks

It might be genetic fate that your piriformis will interfere with the nerve when developed no matter what. But you might try developing the other stabilizing muscles. What I recall worked was sumo squats, backwards jogging and karaoke steps.

Piriformis pain sucks!!! I hope I can help you.

I experienced it last indoor season amidst a training cycle and racing period in which I was feeling incredibly fit and confident. Hence, I probably pushed my workouts too hard the week following a pr. The inciting factor was fast track work on a not completely rested body. Sooo, just as with any running injury, REST is imperative and underrated.

The pain would bother me so much and I limped around like something was up my arse for at least a week. I constantly foam rolled, and rolled out on a lacrosse ball (very good to dig in deep at specific spots), but honestly to no real effect other than short term relief. Honestly I believe too much foam rolling and working of the muscles doesn't let them rest and heal on their own enough, so in that regard, I would recommended to not foam roll too much.

Just as you stated, my athletic trainers had my work on fire strength excercises such as donkey kicks, fire hydrants, clamshells, and glute bridges etc for a few weeks after the injury started. These excercies truly did help restore my strength and muscular imbalances in my hips/glutes. Continue to do these even after you move past the pain and resume your normal training. It is great maintenance for the body.

However, the most helpful pain and symptom reliever for my piriformis came from searching stretching excercies on YouTube. Just look them up. I started doing them and felt immediate relief from the deep stretches they provided. Do this.

Once I took some time off, I resumed training. I ran lower mileage the rest of the outdoor season. I started doing 50-70 as opposed to the 80-90, and just relied on my previous fitness and confidence to carry me through.

I hope it works out for you! Rest well- sleep on a good routine at an early hour. Hydrate better. Do the excercies. And take a little step back from running, relax, and sometimes remaining patient is the only thing you can do. When I recovered from my piriformis pain, I had the best outdoor season of my life! Good luck brother

How did it go? Did you get to resolve the issue and how?;)

1) Monster walks with a mini band around your ankles

2) Squats with a mini band around your thighs

3) Squats holding a ball or pilates ring between you knees

4) Pigeon pose