Little history…used to be able to ride hours and hours and hours on my tri bike and it was great. Now I have piriformis syndrome and a really tight hamstring on one leg. In one 70.3 race this year, it got so painful I had to sit up to stretch on the hilly bike course and was pretty tight for several days. After that race, I decided maybe I was a bit too tight and raised my saddle ever so slightly. That was June, been riding my road bike without any pain on weekdays and tri bike on long bike on weekends. After hanging the road bike up for the last 6 weeks and focusing on my tri bike it has starting rearing its ugly head (no pun intended). My question is do you think maybe I should move my saddle forward a hair, adjust that one cleat (maybe forward or backward) a hair, or am I just flat out screwed on this one. I have honestly been having problems with this for about a year now and can’t seem to get past it.
Any medical advice…and yes I have seen a PT, doing exercises and stretches but it won’t seem to go away. any bike fit advice…and yes i have seen one of the best bike fitters in the US.
Shouldn’t you be lowering the saddle? Wouldn’t raising the saddle just cause more problems?
My whole season went south due to piriformis problem. At the swedish LD champs i had to get out of the race after 60km on the bike b/c i couldn´t pedal.
Started to train in september and hope to do a decent race at IMFL but i´m not 100% yet.
I would love to hear if someone else had this problems and how they got rid of them.
Jocke - search youtube for piriformis syndrome. they had a few stretches I haven’t done before. I’m not sure if they helped or made it worse but I did them 2 days ago and the next day I could barely walk, sit or run. Needless to say I am not doing those again.
Guess I’ll stick to my PT exercises.
From what I have been told you just have to rebuild the strength in those muscles or it continues to plague you. You could take time off, but it won’t actually solve anything b/c it will come right back.
I originally thought about lowering my saddle but remembered the pain I was in at the 70.3 race and talked through it with some experts and came to the conclusion that maybe it was too low, but now I just don’t freaking know.
EEERRRR frustrating!
I called it an early season as well b/c I am trying to build for an early season IM next year.
I’ve been suffering badly from piriformis syndrome. I’ve got all sorts of things going at once that I’m doing for it … stretching, seeing a SET therapy guy, etc. One of the things I did was buy a new Cobb V-Flow Max saddle. Because of the way you mount the saddle (slightly nose high) I should have dropped the seatpost about 5 mm but I decided to try it like it was. I’m very glad I did. Something about my spin seems so much more smooth and I’ve re-found power that I’d lost to the pain.
Something’s working. I’ve been battling this for a year, but it had really gotten a lot worse over the summer. Now it’s improving quite a lot. I think being a bit higher in the saddle has been a part of it. Just my opinion.
I went through a nasty bout of Piriformis pain in the spring (short, but nasty). It turns out my saddle had slipped down and sideways a bit. N+1, but…
pirformis syndrome is also a common running injury. Any chance it is from that? Rolling around on a tennis ball is supposed to help. I found this stretch helped me.
i found out my piriformis syndrome was herniated disc related, and the rolling and trigger point ball only aggravated it. if you can afford it, and haven’t done so already, i’d get an mri if its real bad.
x2 . I had a lot of problems . Lasted 2 years. Seems to be going away with lifting . Core, Hamstrings, Quads, Hips.
I guess it’s no surprise that so many others have suffered the way I have been in an injury that is not spoken of very much, maybe b/c it is a pain in the a$$? LOL I have often questioned if mine is a herniated disc related as well just b/c at times I feel like something isn’t moving correctly but always thought maybe it was muscle imbalance related. I have started back after a 6 week break from my strength training program and am starting back on my PT exercises as well. It could very well be running related but I feel it more on the bike than running so that is why I think it has to do with bike position, maybe overuse related, not sure.
Love the feedback, keep it coming! I’ll try anything!
Piriformis syndrome submarined my '07 chicago marathon. I don’t know that a change in saddle height will make much of a difference, but I’m certain that you can’t just wait for this to go away - you need to proactively get after it. With about 3 weeks off and a commitment to a brutal massage, stretching/rolling and ice bath routine, I was pretty much recovered, but even 2 years later I need to pay attention to it and I haven’t done back to back hard days since the training episode that originally set it off. I’d stick to the pool until it’s sorted - otherwise you’re likely to battle this for a really long time.
Any updates on this as far as bike fit is concerned? I’ve had very slight pain for at least 5 years, but this year (my first on a tri bike) it has gotten worse. I’ve done the stretches, which do help, but as soon as I get on the bike and put in any real effort it hurts. It does NOT hurt when I stand up and pedal hard.
I’m trying to decide whether to move my seat up, down, forward, or backwards.