Piriformis or ITB

Triathlon Forum
1

I would like to tap the collective knowledge on an injury question-

Saturday did a 50 mile ride, toward the end developed a knot in my right glute. Figured no big deal. Sunday morning ran 12, felt fine for the first 6 and some tightness over the last 6. By the time I finished my right glute was very tight making it painful to walk. Ice, stretch and advil on Sunday and Monday. Tuesday morning tried to run, about 2 miles in got tight so decided to bail and see what happens. Wednesday night did about an hour of intervals on indoor trainer, no pain, no problems. This morning go out to run felt great for 2 miles, then my hip/glute got tighter and tighter. At 3 miles could not run anymore and ended up walking the 2 miles home. Pain got progressively worse with some pain radiating into thigh. Most of the pain seems to be just in back of the trochanter. Here’s the question - I know the ITB goes from the hip to the knee, can it cause pain in the hip or just the knee? Is this more likely an inflamed piriformis?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Sean

2

i had both ITB and piriformis sindrome in the past. For what you have posted, it seems piriformis sindrome. But im far from an expert… and you should look for one.

3

not an expert by any means, but dealing with my own ITB issues. The physio tells me that ITB problems are expressed either in the hip area or the outside of the knee. FWIW.

Look up the “IT Band Syndrome” thread that I started a few days ago for all the information you could ever want on the IT band.

good luck!

4

Either or…the treatment is about the same. Stretching, stretching and more stretching is what works for me. A good therapuetic massage therapist can help a lot too.

Some of the stretches that work best for me, for both issues, are the pigeon and double pigeon yoga poses. They really open up the hips and that is what you want to do for either problem.

Don’t wait till it gets bad…start working on that hip flexibility now…it really works.

G