I was talking with a member today when he came in. He was letting me know that his back was hurting and he may need to take it pretty easy on the workout today. In talking with him may hunch was that it wasn’t really his back that was bothering him, rather it was his glutes that were tender and pulling on the back of his hips that may be the issue. We spent some time going through a handful of movements, a mix of old school static stretching, band assisted stretches as well as some active range of motion resisted stretches. At the end of the day he didn’t do the class but spent time working on correcting what was bothering him and said he felt way better then when he arrived. So let’s talk about what the issue was and how to tell the difference of whether it really is your back or is it your downstairs mix up that is really the matter.
The member today described the pain being on one side of the body and not on his spine or in the erector muscles of the spine. Rather he said the pain was off to the side above the gluteal (butt). I know from my personal experience that whenever that spot is bothering me, it is almost always because I did a heavy hamstring/glute workout the day or two prior…and maybe I didn’t take the time to stretch and recover properly. One of the biggest lessons you can learn about your body is that when something becomes aggravated, normally the spot that is hurting isn’t the spot that actually is the problem. The spot of pain is most likely just expressing the symptom of pain but the real issue is a muscle or tendon group that is downstream, and the downstream muscle/tendon is what is pulling on the achy spot. In this case, when the hamstrings and glutes get solidly pounded and don’t get the recovery attention they need they can tighten up enough that it pulls on the top of the hip. Because the glutes stabilize and help move the hips and low back, when someone with this ache leans over it feels very much like they have a “back” issue. Most people would hop on a roller or do some twists to help loosen up their back or dig a lacrosse ball into the tight spot. While at first thought that may seem like the best thing to do to treat the initial pain spot, let’s talk about a few drills that you can do to help loosen and recover the hamstrings and glutes a little faster.
The first drill we are going to discuss is one that both gets the hamstrings warm as well as loosened up. Which are both of the things you need to happen in order to help get the hips feeling better. This drill is meant to be slow and deliberate not fast and wild. If you are someone that has typically tight hamstrings, this can be a great exercise to create length in the legs one side at a time and not let the dominant side compensate for the weak side. Check out the video below for the play by play.
Beginning end rage in left picture and improved end rage after 2 sets on each leg!
The second drill is a fun stretch that we use the the classes a bit. I typically call them windshield wipers. This stretch really helps get a lot of the smaller hard to reach areas of the hips. Most of the time in the classes we focus on moving the knees side to side pretty steady, if you are looking to really help alleviate the tightness in the hips I recommend holding certain positions in order to help stretch the glutes and hip flexors. Check out the video below to see and hear what I am talking about!
The last drill is going to be a simple bridge. Using a med ball and either a band or dodgeball we can help square up the hips after loosening and stretching the joints in all different directions. All we need to do here is place our upper back and neck on top of a med-ball or bench and place our hips under the knees. After we get into position we will drive the heels down into the ground and push the hips upward. The focus here is to keep the abs tight and getting the glutes to squeeze as high as possible while keeping the knee in line with the hips. Check out the video below for more details on this drill!
Coach P