Piriformis

mamiljock

Anyone ever gotten over this? Do the stretches etc but still left with a dull ache in buttock sometimes a short sharp pain ... not been on the bike for a year .. which started as a short break to see if that helped but no difference

sloppyschleckonds

Sounds like a pain in the ar$e, what is it?

davecara

I've got a pierced piriformis apparently according to my quack.
I find loads of piriformis stretching stops it playing up, and cycling! If i run/jog anywhere I lose sensation in my left foot for about 2 hours :?
As with any muscular ache (In my experience I'm not a doc!), stretch it out and massage if you can and it'll right itself

gazrichards

As a professional sports masseuse I will say that rest alone will not cure the injury. The underlying problem will still be there unless it is treated (with massage maybe). Rest is to prevent further aggravation of the injury.
For piriformis problems you usually need deep massage so see a sports massage practitioner rather than just "whale sonds and hot stones" massage. If they are doing it properly they should check the tightness by makng you lay on your front and moving your lower leg from side to side whilst it is bent at the knee. The massage should involve fists, elbows and lots of deep pressure on your back side!
Once the injury is treated you need to keep on top of it with regular maintainence such as stretching, strengthening excercises, foam rollering and regular massage.
If you suffer a pierced piriformis then it supposedly can be treated with "flossing" I'll let you google it but basically it involves stretching the sciatic nerve and moving it back and forth through the piriformis to open up a gap!

Jay_Pea

I'm not medically qualified but I'm sucessfully managing my Piriformis syndrome.

In my experience the pain in your butt is a product of a muscular / postural issue elsewhere in the body that is causing the piriformis to be activated when it shouldn't be. It's probably caused by something completely unrelated to cycling (digging in my case) but will make itself felt when you ride your bike. This took me a couple of years to figure out, I tried a myriad of positional tweaks, cleat shims etc without success before going back to the drawing board and looking at my body rather than the bike. From the length of time you've been off the bike you've ruled out the bike as a cause.

I tried Pilates for a few months and bizzarely I felt better after the very first hour, I later figured out it was the stretching. Pilates aims to correct postural imbalances, my postural imbalances were causing me to utilise my piriformis to compensate hence the pain. I found that the hardest thing about Pilates was walking through the door, there aren't too many blokes that went to my sessions!

Time constraints mean that I no longer get to classes however I bought "Core Advantage" by Alison Westfahl and Tom Danielson which is great. Leaving aside that the doping thing and his backwards facing baseball hat leave a bad taste in my mouth the content is really good and you'll get a series of stretches and exercises you can do in 15 minutes just about anywhere that will correct imbalances and promote strength.

Other things that have worked for me
- Sleeping with a rolled up towel between my knees (affected side uppermost) means I'm not waking up with an overstretched piriformis that helpfully goes into spasm over breakfast!
- Stretches, apart from the ones in the book there are loads of videos on youtube (apply the usual bullshit filters)
- Massage. If paying a stranger to pummel your buttocks for an hour isn't your thing then you can do something similar with a tennis ball (google it) or understanding life partner!
- Combine sretching massage and strengthening exercises to relieve the symptoms and tackle the causes

All of this is gleaned from persoanl experience and may not apply to you but read up on it, it is possible to manage it. Hopefully with persistence I'll be able to get rid of it permanately.

mamiljock

Thanks guys I'll give them a try ... a do have a manual trade job which involves long hours, digging, awkward bending etc and the nagging pain is becoming a problem ... funnily enough I don't feel it on the bike just later as I stiffen up I guess. I also had lower back and between the shoulders pain, chiropracter helped that but not the sore buttock .. i fact when she massaged the muscle alongside my spine at my lower back a real pain used to shoot down from there into my buttock and it was very sore - a different pain from muscle ache.

stevewj

I have this but only from driving - not an issue on the bike. Long journeys in particular leave a nauseating nagging dull ache. I have pretty much sorted it using a roller - just using body weight to and fro - very painful to do but seems to get rid of it. If I don't use it for a while it comes back so prob best to keep it up to prevent recurrence.

neillp

Try some hip flexor stretches, sometimes this pain can be cause by an imbalance in your pelvis.

This is what happens to me and I spent ages doing the usual glute style stretches which always help a little but after a week of doing hip flexor stretches my pain has gone.

Good look it realy is a pain in the A&^e!