strained Piriformis

After training with Travis on Sunday, I got up Monday and ran three miles, Tuesday morning I got up and ran another three miles, but my hip was bothering me. I decided to go see Dr Jeff at Trinity Chiropractic and get adjusted and have him look at my hip too. Back and hip adjusted well, but then my hip pain got worse. Then on Wednesday when I woke up it was so bad, I could barely walk. We went out on the boat and I sat down most of the time and complained about my hip the whole time. When we came back in, I stopped at Dr. Jeff's office again. He had me do some movements and said I strained my piriformis muscle (see below). It was due to all of the reps of rotating my hips and turning in to do the hip tosses. Jeff suggests I take a week off, but after doing lots of therapy last night it felt great this morning. Instead of running this morning, I did 3 miles on the bike. I hope to be able to train Sunday night.

The piriformis muscle begins inside the pelvis. It connects to the sacrum, the triangular shaped bone that sits between the pelvic bones at the base of the spine. The connection of the sacrum to the pelvis bones forms the sacroiliac joint. There is one sacroiliac joint on the left and one on the right of the low back. The other end of the piriformis muscle connects by a tendon to the greater trochanter, the bump of bone on the top side of your hip.

The piriformis muscle is one of the external rotators of the hip and leg. This means that as the muscle works, it helps to turn the foot and leg outward. Problems in the
piriformis muscle can cause problems with the sciatic nerve. This is because the sciatic nerve runs under (and sometimes through) the piriformis muscle on its way out of the pelvis. The piriformis muscle can squeeze and irritate the sciatic nerve in this area, leading to the symptoms of sciatica.