I have an athlete that has a pain that runs from his foot to his butt. I was wondering if there is any idea what it could be and how to take care of it. Thanks in advace!
I have an athlete that has a pain that runs from his foot to his butt. I was wondering if there is any idea what it could be and how to take care of it. Thanks in advace!
or more commonly referred to as "the leg"
yes....i'm thinking its Sciatica....
Good one...."the leg"...
Seriously, this does sound like Sciatica. I had this at one time, and for me it was because of an extremely tight piriformis muscle, which the sciatic nerve runs right through. The muscle clamps down on the nerve, thus causing pain down the entire leg.
What helped me tremendously was regular (like every 2-3 weeks) sports massage and pressure release therapy on my lower body/butt. Without this I would not have been able to train. It seemed three weeks was about right and it got me through several months of marathon training. Find a good sports massage therapist.
Seeing as it includes the foot butt but not the back, I would lean toward a piriformis issue. Can't say for sure over a message board, but that would be a good place to start.
You can treat it yourself. Sports massage is great but once every 2-3 weeks is NOT a lot of treatment. Would running once every two to three weeks make you more fit? You need treatment every day.
See
for the proper treatment.
I guess I was not clear that massage every 2-3 weeks was not the ONLY thing that I did, but that it was the most important thing.... At the time I couldn't afford a professional massage every day (as I doubt many can), so I supplimented this with stretching specific to the piriformis and self massage by sitting on a tennis ball/baseball, rolling it around to get at the piriformis. This hurts a lot, but it really gets at the muscle.
For stretching, the most beneficial was laying on my back, knees bent, bring the sore leg up, putting the ankle on top of the opposite knee, then pulling back on that "not sore" leg gently till you feel a stretch on the sore side of your butt.
Right on! I'm willing to bet that the work you did on yourself did more good than the the professional massage did.
The sitting on a baseball is great! You can also use a frozen orange.
Thanks you guys/girls have been great! I think I can get access to massage (we have a mother who is a Massage Therapist). I will show him the stretches and we'll rest him a bit. thank you agian!!
One other thing you might recommend is to have him take pressure off the side the pain is in. Have him sit on the other hip relieving the pressure off his painful side. Also tell him not to sit with a wallet in his back pocket. Big wallets can cause extra pressure on the piriformis causing additional pain. Just a few recommendations.