I’m no doctor for sure, I’d imagine many of you are not…but I’m hoping to avoid a trip to the doc/therapist.
The past few runs my left upper quad/thigh area has been hurting quite a bit. Usually about 2 miles in, then is good and tender to painful for the next day or so. Hard to describe, but it’s just below my hip bone, on the front side of my leg, around the very top of what I assume is my quad. If you are sitting or standing & lift your leg, it’s the tough part you can feel protruding & tensing as you lift. I don’t know if that description does you any good, but it’s the best I can come up with.
I have done a bit of muscular research & tried to search for a stretch for every muscle I could some up with in that area, but nothing’s doing the trick. The best thing so far seems to be doing a kneeling lunge of sorts and trying to get my hurt leg stretched as far back as possible and sort of thrusting my pelvis…but somethings not quite right. This in addition to a simple standing quad stretch just isn’t doing the trick.
I’m always very conscious of good stretching & this has come out of nowhere.
I’d appreciate any help or suggestions you all might have.
I’m no doctor either but have had something similar, at least it sounds like it.
Depending on what kind of mileage you’re doing it sounds like just tight muscles, mainly IT band (hip to knee tendon (I think)). Anyway what worked the best for me is a foam roller (http://www.performbetter.com/catalog/assets/Exercisesheets/PDF/FoamRoller.pdf) I just roll along it kind of like in the third picture but I put both legs together off the ground from hip to knee. I kind of move in a full circle around if that makes sense so I get the quad, hip and thigh. It will hurt at first but gets better. I use it twice a day until the problem goes away.
I bought my roller on e-bay but just google “foam roller” and you’ll see a ton!
Grosso-Whew, not much to go on. I looked at your profile to see if I could get any clues as to your age but, sadly, like most Slowtwitch forum users you are anonymous.
In the medical world, when a patient has a complaint, you may not know exactly what’s wrong but you can generate a differential diagnosis, a list of potential causes. In someone with anterior thigh pain, you’d likely include at least the following:
Hip Pointer
Femoral Stress Fracture
Quadriceps Strain
Arthritis of the Hip
L2-L3 Nerve Root Issue
Osteitis Pubis, etc.
If you were to assume that your physical exam (and possibly xrays) didn’t show major problems, I’d start with Quad Strain. This can be either an acute onset or overuse problem. Rarely, runners can even tear the muscle and I’ve seen a couple over the years actually have bone form in the muscle over the long term.
I’d recommend early daily use of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, icing and stretching as long as you can do it without pain. Some folks will need to stretch the hamstrings as well as the hip flexors, supine straight leg raises working eventually to quad sets. There has been some data that points toward ultrasound as a contributory agent in the development of myositis (bone forming in the muscle) so I’d avoid it initially. I’d also be pouring over my log book and last week or two of runs to see if terrain, shoe choice, etc. can be part (or all) of the basic cause. Good luck.
Don’t rule out a femoral stress fracture. I’m not saying it is one, but your symptoms seem to be consistent with a possible stress fracture. That being said, several injuries have symptoms similar to stress fractures, so it really could be anything. But based on what you’re describing, it may not be muscular, and it may be skeletal. Its definitely worth a visit to the doctor for some x-rays, just to make sure.
I had a femoral stress fracture last year. I didn’t even know you could get a femoral stress fracture until I had been in pain for 3 weeks, and I finally saw a doctor, who delivered the bad news.
Again, I hope I’m just being an excessive alarmist and I hope that your skeletal system is 100% healthy, but I think avoiding a doctor is the wrong approach. Its better to get the diagnosis as soon as possible, even if you’re afraid of what it might be. On the flip side, maybe you’ll find out that its no big deal, and can be handled relatively easily.
Hey thanks all for the initial responses.
With regards to some info you were looking for…
I’m 25, male, have been running regularly starting a few months ago.
Doing about 14mi a week consistently, usually as 4, 4, 6.
I think I’m gonna head to the doc to make sure nothing bad is going on, after that maybe to a phys. therapist place.
I haven’t had good luck w/ orthopedists before.
I’ve been an athlete forever, I usually am pretty in tune with what’s wrong. That said, it feels to me like it’s a muscular issue, just something I am not stretching completely or correctly…I just can’t figure out how to stretch that area on my own. So hopefully a PT can help with that. Had the same problem a few years back with my other hip, was worried about stress fractures, bursitis, etc…after xrays & cts, turns out I wasn’t stretching my IT band correctly, and now that problem is over…on to the next.
If you do choose to seek medical attention, do your homework before you choose where to go. Some docs like to take care of runners, some don’t. So, ask around, particularly at your local running shoe store, an invaluable resource. Who do they send folks to? Who’s the local “running guru” on the medical side of the house? Locally we have a physiatrist (a type of MD) and a physical therapist pair who seem to deal with the majority of runners. Everybody wins!
Ok, if you’re running only 14 miles per week, its pretty unlikely to be a fracture, so try not to lose any sleep worrying about that. And I think you’ve got the right idea about seeing a doctor, just to make sure. Remember - when dealing with injuries, a proper diagnosis is far and away the most important thing.
i had a femoral stress fracture too.
I also had real bad tendonitis/bursitis.
6 weeks on crutches, 4 more of no running fixed the sfx and getting active release therapy has alleviated e tendonitis. I just had a MRI yesterday, hopefully it’s all cleared up.
However i was doing ruck runs with an excess of 100lb’s, falling out of airplanes and running 30-35 miles a week and doing 70.3’s on the side when i developed the SFX…
Keep stretching, rest it for a few weeks and maybe go see an ART provider. I swear by mine… Although the first few visits were pretty painful…
After the downtime i still did a 2:20 oly at havasu, so it doesn’t kill you as bad as you’d think.