I injured my back mucking around in the pool, one of my friends jumped on top of me. I woke up the next morning with a tight left QL and over time the pain has gradually become worse and the muscle has become tighter.
I did a search on QL pain through weightlifting injuries. I have been strengthening the glute med/min and foam rolling the QL. I have also been performing hip corrections as part of a warm up and weighted side bends on the opposite QL. I have heard of the QL tightening up to prevent the spine from getting damaged and I think this is what has happened in the pool. I was wondering if doing the above stuff will help loosen the QL even if it didn’t happen as a result of a strength imbalance. After three months it is still tight and painful, I have stopped deadlifting and any rows where my back isn’t supported. Squats cause me no pain. After one leg work or glute/ham work it gets a little tweaky. Anyone ever experience this from a car accident or non lifting related event? and how do you fix it? Should I continue the above exercises?
I have also heard mixed opinions on whether stretching the tight QL is a good idea…
Try not to focus so much on the QL. Work on some of the muscles around it. It may have already been overactive initially, and the pool just tweaked it a bit.
Do some isolated glute work and some weighted knee drive/hip flexor work to wake those muscles up and let your QL calm down on it’s own.
If a muscle hurts, generally it has to do with everything surrounding it.
Also, try this stretch, it’s one of my favorites for the QL.
http://www.wcwclinic.com/wellness/level1/kneeling.aspx
[quote]Im_New_Feed_Me wrote:
Try not to focus so much on the QL. Work on some of the muscles around it. It may have already been overactive initially, and the pool just tweaked it a bit.
Do some isolated glute work and some weighted knee drive/hip flexor work to wake those muscles up and let your QL calm down on it’s own.
If a muscle hurts, generally it has to do with everything surrounding it.
Also, try this stretch, it’s one of my favorites for the QL.
http://www.wcwclinic.com/wellness/level1/kneeling.aspx[/quote]
Thanks for the post, when you say knee drive/hip flexor work do you mean activation drills for the hip flexor, or exercises such as a band around your foot and pulling the knee upwards to work the hip flexor?
Both. Society makes us sit constantly which in turn weakens, shortens, and deactivates our hip flexors. So the best way to do it is to activate, strengthen and lengthen it.
Do the activation drills, then the knee drive - I prefer a cable crossover machine with the ankle strap, on the lowest pulley, then put a bench in front of you so you have something to lean on. Make sure you do knee drives in 3 directions to really hit it - medial, to the front and laterally.
When you are stretching your hip flexors at the end of your session, at the bottom portion make sure you squeeze your glute and keep your core as tight as possible, you feel feel the stretch much more.
A lot of my clients have ql’s that take over during ANY sort of hip flexion, so this makes a huge difference.
Just a question, how are your plank times?
[quote]Im_New_Feed_Me wrote:
Both. Society makes us sit constantly which in turn weakens, shortens, and deactivates our hip flexors. So the best way to do it is to activate, strengthen and lengthen it.
Do the activation drills, then the knee drive - I prefer a cable crossover machine with the ankle strap, on the lowest pulley, then put a bench in front of you so you have something to lean on. Make sure you do knee drives in 3 directions to really hit it - medial, to the front and laterally.
When you are stretching your hip flexors at the end of your session, at the bottom portion make sure you squeeze your glute and keep your core as tight as possible, you feel feel the stretch much more.
A lot of my clients have ql’s that take over during ANY sort of hip flexion, so this makes a huge difference.
Just a question, how are your plank times?[/quote]
Ok I will start the knee drive exercise straight away. I can hold a front plank for 2 minutes and a side plank for a minute 15s. I have been doing side bends and side planks for the opposite side. Do you think this will help or should I continue doing side bends on each side?
Do some dynamic side planks with some weight held on your opposite side. Like a side plank, but just continue the up and down motion… That will hit your ql a bit better than just standing side bends.
Try this stuff out and see what happens. Also, along the same lines as the glute activation guy was talking about, try to contract your glutes (while sitting or standing) as many times as you can remember throughout the day. This will increase the muscle memory and give you a better connection when you do the glute work. Also, try unilateral glute work as well, to help just a bit more with connection. (Deep anterior reach with hips back, cook hip lifts, stuff like that)
[quote]Im_New_Feed_Me wrote:
Do some dynamic side planks with some weight held on your opposite side. Like a side plank, but just continue the up and down motion… That will hit your ql a bit better than just standing side bends.
Try this stuff out and see what happens. Also, along the same lines as the glute activation guy was talking about, try to contract your glutes (while sitting or standing) as many times as you can remember throughout the day. This will increase the muscle memory and give you a better connection when you do the glute work. Also, try unilateral glute work as well, to help just a bit more with connection. (Deep anterior reach with hips back, cook hip lifts, stuff like that)[/quote]
Should I do the side planks for both sides? or only the opposite side to the tight one? It doesn’t hurt when I do them on the tight side I just thought that if I strengthened the other one it might even them up/loosen the tight QL.
Your side plank times are great! For the most part just keep your concentration on your hip flexors and glutes for now.
[quote]Im_New_Feed_Me wrote:
Your side plank times are great! For the most part just keep your concentration on your hip flexors and glutes for now.[/quote]
OK will do. I tried the knee drive today and they felt really good. I also tried contracting my abs and glutes when stretching my hip flexors and the stretch was unreal. Thank you so much for all the information, much appreciated.
Not a problem man, I look forward to hearing how it all worked out.
My QL has calmed down quite a bit now. I really noticed a difference when I started doing the glute and knee drives. The thing that helped the most I think was working the glute med by externally rotating my foot slightly and bringing my leg out 45 degrees behind me. I could sort of feel the QL firing at the start of the movement then I concentrated on squeezing my glutes and this exercise took a lot of tension from the tight QL. Thanks again.