I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve been struggling for over a year with tightness across my lower back. I don’t know if its a by-product of strength training, or if its related to the high degree of aerobic activity that I was doing before. I’ve tried regular stretching, coupled with yoga training to improve the situation without much luck. So, about 4 months ago, I decided to talk to my doctor about physical therapy.
After an evaluati
on, the therapist told me the pain is a result of a pinched sciatic nerve caused by piriformis irritation. For those of you who don’t know, the piriformis is a muscle that runs through the pelvis. Piriformis pain appears to be primarily an overuse injury that is best treated with stretching. I’ve discovered that muscle is darned near impossible to stretch effectively, but the good doctors were kind enough to give me some exercises, most of which I now know can be found on the spine-health website.
I went for supervised stretching 2-3 days each week for about 2.5 months. After that point, the routine wasn’t changing, and the therapist essentially told I’d have to keep doing these stretches for quite some time to completely alleviate the discomfort. So, now I’m doing them at home. My goal is to stretch 2 or 3 times each day. I try to hit it first thing in the morning and right before bedtime each day, with a midday stretch thrown in when possible.
I feel I’m making progress, but when I miss a day, it shows. So, a piece of advice. If you ever feel like skipping out on your stretching, or accelerating your training too fast — don’t. The price on the back-end just stinks.
So, now I’ve got to go stretch.
