Improving Hip Internal and External Rotation: Hip Mobility from Z-Health

If you sit a lot or have tight hip compressed hips, you might find that this hip mobility mobilization from Z-Health gives you more space in your hips and help get you out of pain of stiffness. I felt great after doing these the first time through, so they are spot on for me. The movement and rotations make it easier for you to find your tough spots and work on those carefully.

How to "Conquer Your Uneven Hips: Simple Strategies to Regain Balance and Structure in Your Central Joint"

I don't know if it can always be done and I don't know if I can even correct my own pelvic tilt that I have had since before I was a runner and that goes back to about 45 years ago when I "failed" the junior high scoliosis test and was sent to Boston Children's Hospital to deal with what they called a "leg length discrepancy". Last month the doctor who has given me prolotherapy injections ordered an x-ray and I read the results and I still have a tilted pelvis.

Running in Kenya. The security guard didn't speak English, know how to use
my camera, or to move his finger off the lens!

I am happy riding my ElliptiGO these days, miss running, but not doing anything to hurt my body. Every once in awhile, I try out a run, but the next day my hip is imbalanced and sore. I did a few runs in June, culminating with my longest run in well over a year: 7 miles, but that was just to prove to myself that I could survive a run so that I could get a run in when I went to Kenya in July. I did get a two mile run while I was in Kenya which was pretty cool. I was out in the country at the Joska boarding school and had fun running on the dirt roads and all the Kenyans would wave and cheer me on! One guy riding by on a motorcycle shouted out, "Why in the world are you running?" I retorted, "I'm in Kenya!"

I haven't run since. I feel a creakiness in my hip joint, but it is mostly the the ligaments and muscles around my hip joint that pull everything out of place and leave my whole left leg out of whack the next day after a run and my hip feels jammed up. So I ride my ElliptiGO, which allows me to shift my body around, but I am never fully comfortable in the muscles around my hips. They are rarely feeling balanced.

The good news is that the day after running 7 miles, I returned to my prolotherapist doctor and only after two visits she said my si joint was good and tight. I had a great response to this therapy. Originally, she had said that it might take four visits to even know if it would work for me and she said it would probably take at least six visits in all. I was good after two, which would save me a bunch of money as insurance doesn't cover prolo. So my si joint had improved, but I still feel unbalanced and out of whack three or four days a week. I asked about prolo in the hip joint. She used to do that, but would recommend PRP therapy instead, but that is out of my price range. I was curious about prolo helping the muscles and ligaments surrounding the hip joint. She said it might, but seems cautious about doing anything further, beyond ordering the x-rays. My report says:

STANDING AP PELVIS.
HISTORY: REASON FOR TEST PAIN IN JOINT, PELVIS, THIGH
TEST DETAIL: OSTEOARTHRITIS
COMPARISON: AP pelvis from left hip series 4/25/2013, 9/5/2012.
IMPRESSION:
1. Pelvic tilt with the left superior iliac crest approximately
26 mm more superior compared to the superior right iliac crest.
2. Mild bilateral hip joint space narrowing, acetabular
articular sclerosis and tiny lateral marginal osteophytes, not
significantly changed.
3. Mild bilateral sacroiliac joint. Symphysis degenerative
changes.
4. No visible fracture.

In the past, I have ordered many of  Sean Schniederjan's ebooks on the hip and lower back. I have found that he has some good information and alternative exercises which he tells about in a straightforward way. I have found some of his movements helpful at times, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly which or what movement was best for my conditions. I noticed that he recently put out a new ebook Conquer Your uneVEN Hips: Simple Strategies to Regain Balance and Structure In Your Central Joint and decided that would be another good one to try. Sean just doesn't repost the same exercises and movements that are sort of the "recipe" approach that everyone mimics and posts online, he explains things that may be a bit unusual, but that have worked for him. I have done a few of these exercises and they seem to really tire out the muscles around my hip that are always tight and I noticed my hips feeling a bit more stable since doing them. It will be interesting to see how these work over time.

Here is Sean demonstrating some of these exercises:



The beauty of the EllitpiGO is that not only can I move my body around to adjust for instability, but I am also using the handlebars to keep my body stable when not working in perfect posture (of course this can also be a bad thing). I have had a great summer riding. I hit a new PR for distance traveled in a week during August when I put in 350 miles. I led all ElliptiGOer on Strava around the world that week in mileage, just as I did last week although I only put in 215 miles. If you looked at last week's' leader board of over 200 riders, I also had the fastest average speed of all riders 16.2 mph except for one person who did 50 miles. Despite my inefficiencies and lack of stability over my hips, I can still do some great workouts on the ElliptiGO.

I get to test my summer training over the next three weekends when I do three separate centuries. Tomorrow I do my first 100 miler of the year at the Ride for Angels. The next Sunday, I will be doing the Charles River Wheelman's Fall Century Soughegan River Tour (and if the weather is great I might to another century the day before). In two weeks, I will be returning to the Seacoast Century.

One thing that I have found somewhat helpful over the past few months when my hip gets jammed and my leg goes out of whack is to use a band as a distraction for my hip doing exercises like these. My prolo doctor said these type of hip distractions were fine! The osteapath she has had me go to in the past, just pulls on my leg. I use the green Strong Assisted Pull-up & Resistance Power Stretch Band .

The accent is half the fun here!

Looking on the Bright Side of Things

Wednesday night it stopped raining for a bit right before the GCS track workout. There was a low runner turnout due to the rain but I joined the A group for the workout! There were only 3 other runners in the group but it felt good to be back with the guys I am used to running with, even if I couldn't keep up the whole way. We did 6 X 800 meters. The first 3 I did in about 3:00-3:02 but then on the the fourth I dropped down to 3:06. I changed shoes and the last two were in 2:56 and 2:58. About the changing of shoes: I wore the Nike Hayward shoes that I have been road training in for the first four. I never wear trainers on the track and even though these are lightweight trainers they still felt big, bulky, and unstable to me but I wanted to try them just to see how they felt. Then I put on my lightweight Saucony Kilkennys. They may be a 1/2 too small and not a perfect fit but I did appreciate the lightness and the ability to feel my feet on the track.

Today I went to Boston for an ART treatment (in the pouring rain again). The shorts I wore which fit well in April when I went to Hawaii are now way too loose. I had to hold onto them to keep them from falling off or to prevent myself from looking like a junior high kid in his low-riding pants! That means my work to eat less and to eat more nutritious food is starting to pay off!

As for the ART treatments, I am not sure if it is worth my time anymore. I only get 5 minutes and I can't even feel like he is putting any pressure on my muscles as I move throught the treatment. He doesn't really answer my questions and the communication is not clear as to what he thinking. Maybe his plans are right on, but I am losing confidence. It would be fine if he was just down the road, but I have to travel nearly 2 hours each way to get 5 minutes of treatment. The exercise he gave me today was to do a hip hiker. Here is the closest video I could find for the exercise. I have done it before- sometimes with good results- but I find it hard to figure out how to do it properly. He had me standing on the floor and bending the non-standing leg, rather than use a stool to stand on with a straight leg. I usually have done it on a stair. He mentioned my upper body was rotating a bit and to stand tall. Strangely enough this works the same muscle that I found was tender in its insertion point to the hip on Monday.



Here is Dave Scott giving directions on top 6 stretches for runners. Some of them are partner stretches.



Here he gives his top four stretches for the hips and glutes. These involve stretch cords or resistance bands.

Getting to the Point: A Return to the Hips

My left leg has felt really off for the past few days. The knee and foot have felt stuck in bad rotations and I can't figure out what to do. I had a massage Monday and that didn't help. I ran the Monday night 5k trail race and had another poor time as I couldn't get that leg to work right. Monday night I tried working with weights on my leg as I did hip strengthening exercises and then I did an Active Isolated Stretching routine that I hadn't done in a long time. The foot still worked the same way.

Yesterday I was watching part of the Tour de France and was still uncomfortable and so I just pressed my fingers into the side of my left hip. I am not sure which muscle that is. I think it might be the insertion point of the gluteus medius at the top of the hip. Anyhow I noticed a tenderness at a certain point there so I started applying some pressure and working on it. When I was done, I walked around and noticed my knee and foot were lined up better and that left leg was back to feeling better again. I can't explain how or why this worked, but I always have strange things that work like that. It probably wouldn't work for anyone else as I think what my body does is pretty unique. I write it here so I can reference and remember it at some other time when the problem returns.

I thought I felt ready for a run. I headed out the door and felt real stiff as soon as I started running. I had to really plug away at the run. My energy was there but it was a real battle to move my body. I kept plugging away and never fully loosened up, but I made it through 12 miles. I was really tight and stiff particularly through the quads and hips. I reminded myself it may be good to use my TP Massage rollers on them later (which reminds me that I lost my TP Massage Ball in Hawaii- along with my iPod- they were in the same bag). I used to use the ball in the same spot on my hips as I leaned into a wall. I believe that the stretching I did the previous night had something to do with the tightness. So I need to ease back slowly into the stretching.

I found a new hip stretch that I like. It is something I found and saved to my computer a while back but never really tried before.

Seated Knee Circles
Procedure: 1. Sit on the ground with
your legs in an “Indian Posture.” 2. Put
both of your hands on one knee. 3.
Rotate and bend your torso toward the
opposite knee and begin circling your
nose around this knee. USE YOUR TORSO TO MAKE
YOUR NOSE CIRCLE THE KNEE, NOT JUST YOUR
HEAD! 4. Once you have gone both directions over one knee,
switch to the opposite knee.
Muscles Being Stretched: Quadratus Lumborum, Erector
Spinae, Transversospinalis
Duration of Stretch: 1 min. for each side.
Important: It is crucial to circle your nose using your torso not
just your neck.
Type of Stretch: Oscillitory
Modified

I like this as it stretches the quadratus lumborum (as well as the whole back) and I haven't found a stretch that does this adequately before. I find this one hard to do (but I definately feel things pulling and moving out of stuck positions) but maybe that is why it will be a good stretch. Here is another:

Knee Circles (static)
Procedure: 1. Sit on the ground with
your legs in an “Indian Posture.” 2. Cup
both of your hands around one knee then
lean forward toward the same knee.
Muscles Being Stretched: Quadratus
Lumborum, Erector Spinae, Transversospinalis
Duration of Stretch: 1 min. for each side.
Important: This is a good stretch to focus on your breath to
fully relax into the stretch.
Type of Stretch: Static

Here is a video that shows some stretches that are supposed to increase hip flexibility.

I had this as a video but it played everytime the page opened so now I am just listing it as a link. "Hi' I"m Leslie...." shouldn't startle you anymore!