Miss Osage County wrote:
Foomiler,
Did/do you have this injury? Have you reduced or eliminated your symptoms with what you talk about in your posts? I'm just curious if you have any first-person results or specifics. You just seem very confident in your knowledge about the ways to "correct" this injury when you post. Yes, flexibility, strength, biomechanical efficiency, maintaining the kinetic chain with proper sequential muscle firing, proper breathing... for *any* runner, injured or not, attention to these areas would be a good thing, and would probably make them a better runner. BUT ultimately, would it be enough to correct the injury? Has it for you?
I suffered from this problem for about 12 years. It was on and off for the first 7 yrs but when I popped my right achilles during the 8th yr I started to fall apart totally. Same symptoms as most people here, most of what you and Fly 137 described too, like numbness/pain even when seated/stationary. Problem left hip seemed to give up in longer runs/races at first, then later even in shorter ones.
Am I better now? Yes. But because part of my pathology has to do with my left leg being anatomically shorter, the only permanence in my healing comes from being able to execute correct technique conducive to glute firing, and not relying on equal foot contact on the ground. That means that I can no longer daydream in my runs, but to be technique conscious all the way, like in practising other skill sports, or in Yoga and Pilates, and in weight-lifting. If I fail to fire each glute successfully, but because of fatigue/loss of concentration, turn to the leg muscles primarily for propulsion, trouble's always around the corner.
I'm in a state of constantly refining my perception and remodeling my bodily habits, a kind of rehab from the bad movement patterns of the past. Like all ex-smokers or -alcoholics or -drug addicts, I'm always one slip away from reverting to previous self-destructive ways. Kind of a self-imposed "poor coordination anonymous".
Personally I do not believe in being prescribed exercises, like being prescribed medication from the pharmacist, in which you simply follow the instructions and ingest the required dosage, and then hocus pocus you get well and never need to do any thing about it ever again. Neuromuscular coordination pops in and out of effectiveness according to changes in our ever changing psychological/emotional/spiritual/physical states.
An exceptionally stressful lifestyle in which one becomes a workaholic without sufficient recreation/rest will have as much impact on our physical coordination as overtraining per se. An extremely introspective person, a perfectionist who worries and worries and sweats all the small things, or an overachiever who is consumed in a neverending quest to beat everyone in class/work; all these are very likely candidates for coordination issues because excessive tension tends to shut down certain neuro-functions in favour of others. If you tend to tense up yr shoulders or groin area regularly, you've probably stepped into that unhealthy zone, and tension in the said areas will shut down yr glutes.
Some more exercises to consider:
One further glute-firing cue to add on to what I've written earlier is BACKWARDS RUNNING. This helped me a lot. If you can reproduce the muscle firing in your body's posterior chain that occurs while running backwards during forward running, chances are, your hip and postural muscles will work in proper tandem.
I believe this is because we do not rely as much on the leg muscles to push our bodies backwards as we do on re-positioning our centre of mass with each succeeding backward stride. We also tend to pick up our feet more than pushing them off the ground, which sort of 'hooks up' the butt from behind, not allowing the hip to over-extend which leads to overstriding and injury (in particular to hip flexors). You also learn better balance on each foot and how to re-distribute yr body weight as you shift from one foot to the other such that you do not emphasise one side over the other, which can also lead to misalignment and injury.
Other activities like backwards skipping & backwards bounding up and downhill, hurdle mobility drills also teach the body to utilise the glutes together with the psoas while challenging the core to hold up an optimal posture.
My healing also accelerated when I realised the need to be more athletic in all planes of motion, and not just the sagittal. I realised that if a runner can get stronger and more coordinated in the transverse, lateral and frontal planes then she/he will experience a re-proportioning of skeleto-muscular structure which relieves tightness that comes from imbalances. There's a very strong need to make a runner's true base to consist not only of more aerobic mileage, but also of developing agility, basic speed, physical strength, mobility, flexibility, eye-hand coordination, etc. or the runner will soon find her/himself unable to fire certain muscles in a coordinated way, even in something as apparently simple as running itself.
I can only say that I hope all this will be sufficient to correct this coordination problem, which I do not necessarily label as an "injury" per se, but more of a "condition". Every person who comes onto this discussion may have vastly different needs which may or may not apply to what I've written, but still I share with hopes that those who do have compatible issues will find something to work towards.
I have insufficient knowledge of how to conclusively treat the hip labral tears which you Miss Osage County and Fly 137 believe you have. But I believe that even if these exercise do not heal the result of the tears, you still need strong and functional glutes anyway. Can you imagine that when you eventually resolve yr underlying injury, you find yourself with hip muscles too weak to support yr pelvis? Won't that leave the hip joint extremely vulnerable? If you only start yr strengthening/muscle recruitment work then, won't healing take that much longer? Also, being strong now will prevent overstraining yr hip area in the meantime, such that you can last till a proper diagnosis/procedure can be prescribed for you. But that's just my point of view.