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Piriformis injury - what should I do?
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I'm a relatively new runner and have been doing a 10k run every couple of days for the past couple of weeks in prep for a race on the 3rd of March.
However, after my past 2 runs I've been experiencing terrible pain in what (after some reasearch) I believe to be my piriformis.
I know it must be injured and will need to heal but I really don't want to lose fitness before my race and was wondering if anyone could give me a guideline of how much I can run on this sort of injury?
I've been doing specific stretched for the area as advised on a few websites and threads.
(On a side note - I'll be travelling to South America on the 20th of March and probably won't be able to do much running for more than a month so there's some guaranteed rest time if I can just get through to then)
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Comments
I had this once, the tightness in the piriformis caused sciatica like pain down the leg. The physio recommended sitting on a tennis ball, find the knotty spot and roll around on the ball to try and ease it out. Plus some stretches, e.g. lie down, knees bent at 90 degrees, put the left foot/anke on right knee and pull the right knee towards your body, stretches the left side. As to whether to run or not, maybe do a couple of shorter but faster runs before trying another 10k distance and see how it goes, if it gets worse though then you may need to stop until it eases off.
Hope you recover soon.
Steve
Thanks Steve
I think have to replace my 10k with a 6k for the next couple of runs and hope that's enough combined with the stretches you suggested
Tennis ball massage does help
Get a Sports and Remedial massage. If it is piriformis syndrome it should help. I have treated many clients successfully with this. Regarding carryting on running, it might make it worse if it is your gait that is causing it.
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Thanks Steve
I think have to replace my 10k with a 6k for the next couple of runs and hope that's enough combined with the stretches you suggested
Angela, thanks for the advice, I'm affraid I wouldn't be able to afford a professional massage though
How can I tell if it is in fact my gait causing the problem?