When I swim in open water, I have this pain in my hips joints bilaterally. I never get this pain swimming in a pool. Has anyone ever experienced this? I am wondering if it is because there are no walls to relieve the pressure off my hips. Also the sighting and wetsuit may be putting more pressure on my hips. My hips don’t hurt when I bike or run…
IME, it’s from sighting in a wetsuit. The wetsuit floats your legs, but then when you look up to sight, your legs should drop, but they can’t. So you are probably looking up too much to sight.
I’ve never heard of this complaint before. Could you be more specific about the pain: location, intensity, hurts more or less doing certain things, etc
So the pain is just outside my greater trochanter. The pain is not sharp but a nagging aching pain on the outside of my hip that seems to be relieved when I kick less. Which is ok because I am trying to save my legs for the bike. It usually starts in the last half of a race, but my last race, I felt it the whole swim… The achy feeling lingers for about the first mile on the bike then goes away…
I guess the one time I have felt the pain indoors was in a kick set. I am an okay swimmer and puller. However I am a terrible kicker and generally avoid these sets…
I found this it sounds similar
http://forums.usms.org/showthread.php?t=14294
You might find this interesting
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=-dj_1mdwUzg&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-dj_1mdwUzg
My guess would be tight hip flexors. I’d suggest that you work on mobility/stretching before the start. As the video points out, as your body position varies, it alters how stress is placed on the structures within you hip. Once you body position changes on the bike it relieves the stress on the affected ligaments or tendons. It doesn’t sound like you have any internal joint problems.
Thanks for sharing the video! Yeah my hips are really tight…I will try stretching/strengthening them before my next race
I think your pain is probably due to being in the same position for extended periods without the break that you get doing a turn in the pool. Not sure how to fix though, more OWS?
Could be your pain is from trochanteric bursitis? The tight wetsuit is likely putting pressure on the bursa overlying the greater trochanter on your femur.
Yeah it is weird, none of my friends in salt lake have experienced it…next summer I will have to practice more OW…I don’t think it is anything serious, just annoying in my races… might ask a physical therapist about it…I do have scolioiosis. Thanks for all your input especially the video…
Hi!
I have a very similar pain. I have swam all my life and never had this pain until recently. I get it on my right side only. My ART guy and I have been working on my psoas. I find that in the open water I mostly breathe to the right and only to the left on occasion. This causes my psoas on my right side to tighten up. It is made worse by sighting and the wetsuit too. I rarely get this in the pool, until the other day I did a 2500 for time and it crept up. Since then I’ve been focusing on breathing more to my left and making sure I rotate far enough to allow the right psoas to stretch and it has been a lot better. I feel your pain literally!
Hope this helps!
Kate Kenny
I get this in my pool swims only. Right side middle of the hip. I’ve been meaning to post about it. I figured it was flip turns that was causing this for me but maybe something else. Maybe I’ll make a conscious effort to breath more on my left.anyone else get this in the pool only?
Interesting, yeah it is usually worse on my right side, and I usually only breathe on my right side too.