Is it actually in the hip joint or the sacro-iliac joint where you are feeling the pain?

It feels like the muscle in the Iliopsoas or Sartorius region, up high, it is definitely one of the hip flexors. If I am sitting upright in a chair and put my thumb right at the crease where my body makes the 90* angle with my leg, that is the point. When cycling, it is a sharp pain. At all times, 24x7, the muscles in that entire area are constantly flexed and I have no mental control to relax them. Massage will relax the muscles but in 10 minutes everything is tight again.

The original Dr. prescribed a round of steriods to reduce inflamation and 2 weeks of PT. The Dr. diagnosed the problem as hip tendinitis, but my feel from him was that he had no clue what was wrong.

Initially, this problem would only show up during a 1/2 IM race about halfway through the bike segment. It was never there in training. I think I aggravated whatever is wrong when I lifted weights very aggressively in the off season and also spent a lot of time doing one legged drills on the bike.

What confuses me so much is that there is no pain running or doing flip turns or kick sets while swimming.

This is really a tough one. Without doing a physical exam and some muscle testing I can only take a guess. Do you have a leg length descrepency, ie one leg longer than the the other that you're aware of. I'd ask the PT to check this out. If so you can have shims placed under one cleat to compensate. Custom cycling orthotics may also help. I'm also wondering about your cleat position.

Here is a stretch for the psoas that migh help.

http://www.whiplash101.com/psoas1.htm

interesting. i'm guessing (key phrase, is guessing) that the tightness has caused inflexibility and with the activity of cycling and the stress of tightness you've got inflamation. inflamation and injury can basically decompose your muscles and now you've got a muscle imbalance.

so tightness=inflexability

activity and tightness=inflamation

inflamation=muscle deterioration

muscle degeneration=muscle imbalance

muscle imbalance=more inflamation and tightness and so on

are you on a perscription anti inflam? try to get a TENS unit so you can wear it at night...

What are the odds... I have a similar gripe that I've been trying to ignore. It bugs me if I pull up hard on the pedals, but it fades through a ride. It only mildly bothers in a run, but is worse uphill. It really gets me if I do vertical kicking from the hip in the pool (i.e., tread water, using a hip kick only, arms at side), or kick hard in a fast 25m. Similar to yours?

Mine won't seem to go away. Sure, it fades to nothing, but then one hard kick in the pool and it's back. Then I'll have a nasty time lifting my leg to put on socks, etc. Two days later, gone again. Huh.

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