sacroiliac pain, looking for suggestions.

[Brendan Coad]

so I have some pain in my SI joint on the right side only. HLL, elevated RLL hurt to the point where I can't do them. I'm pretty sure this was caused by being a bit too aggressive/frequent with my flexibility training. Any suggestions on how to go about fixing this. I want to be proactive and not just "wait it out" if at all possible.

[Cole Dano]

Yeah i've seen that so many times, and had it myself on and off many times.

Mostly in flexibility work it will come from doing backbends from the lumbar, and some times from doing forward bends from the lumbar.

This is one of those hard to diagnose over the internet type of problems, and the pain can last anywhere from a week to many months.

Take the pain as a sign you are doing something 'wrong' and don't push through it.

If you can, post a video of yourself doing the flexibility work that you think caused the problem and i'll be happy to give a critique.

In the meantime, the SI/Lumbar like what i call pseudo-traction. In fact if you saw my earlier video about the Arch Ups and HLL, the pelvic swing is a great device to create that. At first all you do is set up for an arch up, but just hang there and lengthen your back.

Another simple remedy is to lie on your belly and have someone put a weight on your sacrum. Experiment with having over to one side or the other. When you find the sweet spot, lie there a bit and then think of gently twisting the sacrum both ways. Sometimes it get slightly misaligned and this can help put it back.

Finally in doing any kind of leg lifting movement, bend the knees to reduce the load to the point there is no pain, and do the lifting on an EXHALE.

Hope something here is of help.

[Brendan Coad]

Thanks for the reply and I'll try to get a video up sometime soon. I searched your posts last night as I know your pretty knowledgeable about this subject and it lead me to laying on my back with my knees bent on a chair so my shins were parallel to the ground for about 5 minutes pre bed as I think that movement is supposed to release some tension in the psoas and hip flexors.

[Joshua Naterman]

Cole probably knows more about this that I do, but one thing you can try is the static back stretch from Pain Free. You are on your back, on the floor. Your arms are out 45 degrees from your hips, palms up. You are staring at the ceiling. Your lower legs are elevated on a couch or box so that they are A) fully supported from the back of the knee to the heel and B) your knees are directly over or slightly past your hip sockets. This puts the pelvis in a position where the entire spine can completely straighten. This puts all the bones in a very neutral position. Each bone influences the position of the others, because there are small muscles that connect each vertebra to the next underneath the large erectors.You probably have spasms in some of those. I had this problem when I was going through my 12 weeks to BUDS workout, and using Pain Free I got rid of it in around 4 weeks. The static back stretch was one of the key components to this particular part of the injury. You won't get much out of doing more than 5-10 minutes at a time, but doing this many times per day will vastly speed up the results. You have to "convince" the muscles that are seized up that it is ok to relax. The magic of the static back stretch is that it puts your body into a position where there is just about no energy or muscle activity required to have a perfectly aligned spine. This influences the nervous system to let go of the "emergency contractions" that we call spasms. Perhaps this will help you as well.

I like Cole's idea, and as you start regaining mobility you will find that doing the pelvic belt arch ups and curl ups will be a great way to start building the lower back. I think the next step would be some of the lower back mobility work that I mentioned in another thread as well as HeS RLL positives. Not negatives. Negatives were much harder for me, at first I had to just to the raise to headstand. Over time I could lower back down in a very tight tuck, and eventually a wide straddle, and a few months later now pike is super easy. I hope that helps some!

[Cole Dano]

The position Slizz mentions is the absolute #1 go to position for back pain. Particularly when its severe, from there there are a couple of ways to go, and to some extent things need to be worked out on a case by case basis.

I hope i didn't give the impression i meant for Brendon to do arch-ups right away, rather to just lie over the strap, preferably padded for this, and let the back release, its sort of a BW assisted version of the static back stretch.

If Brendon is able to stand up and move almost normally this should be no problem.

Sometimes the SI will also get somewhat out of alignment and if so it will almost beg for twisting movements.

Finally assuming the pain is not severe, ways to turbo charge the static back stretch are one to have one leg straight but supported at a comfortable height and the other bent.

The other is to do it with something like a 2x4 under your sacrum, which can help facilitate the muscles releasing.

I can try to make a little video of how to use the pelvic swing to release the lower back, as i've yet to find a better tool, though hanging from a high bar is also quite good. I'll also try to document a couple of ways to create deep lumbar release if there is some interest.

Just let me know if that would be of use to anyone.

edit-

i want to say that over all the particular things that one can do to help the problem, the biggest thing is to listen to it. From the hints that we give, see what you lumbar wants.

In particular with the low back, any therapeutic thing you do should make it feel better and right away. It may only be a tiny bit better, but it should feel better. If it feels at all worse, its the wrong direction to go, period. The low back will give really clear signals, and you might find that even tiny adjustments to your posture matter. Learn from this. I'd say, that though i've never given my self pain purposefully, pain has been one of my best teachers.

[Brendan Coad]

I've been experimenting with what is working on helping the pain and what isn't and its getting better, although it seems like its going to take a bit of time

I made a video of and RLL elevated which I can do for 5-8 clean reps consistently but now can't even do one. I also kind of pointed to where the pain is at the end of the video.

I've been doing the spinal deloading and cat/cows which seem to be therapeutic. Like I said its getting better but I think its going to be a long road... and a good test of patience.

Thank you Mr Brady and Slizzardman for the information, it is helping me.

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[Cole Dano]

Brendon thanks for making the video, it helps so much to see what someone is doing!

You have strained your lower back, based on where you're showing with your fingers i don't think there is an issue of sacral misalignment, just old fashion overuse strain.

In your case its very clear that you should avoid any kind of loaded spinal flexion right now. In fact the RLL work you are doing is only aggravating your back, which you already know. Just don't do it, and when you start again start with your head on the floor so you won't have to round your back so much when you lift your legs, there is a flexibility issue that is causing you to over round and more importantly, over lean.

Its the way you are leaning with a round back that i suspect caused the problem. It puts a heavy load on the lumbar.

I like to think of the lifting out of round back position like this. With your minds eye feel the lumbar spine, and its is some what like a box with a front and a back side. If you imagine that box is being pulled down from the front, its not hard to see how it will crumple. So how to prevent that? Well you can protect the front by putting a sort of muscular sleeve around it. This is in part the abdominal wall activating. And as you pull the box down at the same time the front of the spine, is actually lifting to support the movement. This anterior work is crucial. The is the abdominal sleeve and deeper there is the lift of the anterior spine.

For now though you need to release your lumbar, and perhaps improve your hamstring flexibility with out creating flexion.

If i have some time i will post a video today. But the basics are already there in the earlier posts.

[Brendan Coad]

Just a quick update so I can track recovery.

I still can't attempt a Piked RLL from my head or raise my legs into an L while hanging. Other than that it feels OK and is pain free except for when I have tested beginning those movements. I can work HeS RLL straddled from the floor with no issue whatsoever so that has been what I've been focusing on as well as alot of static straddle, standing pike stretching(without involving the lower back) ostrich walking and horse stance walking. Cat/cows and HLL with bent knees multiple times a day have also been a staple. I have been doing the laying decompression exercise daily for 10 minutes usually in the evening.

I guess it has been almost 2 months.

[Joshua Naterman]

MAybe you should see if there is a Muscle Activation Techniques practitioner near you. i have a friend going through the program and it is really, really smart. Google search for it to find the site, it has a search form so that you can see if anyone is in your area.

[Brendan Coad]

I did a quick search and it's something I'll have to research a bit and see if I can find someone qualified. Thanks for the info, I had never heard of MAT before

[Joshua Naterman]

Me either, I found out that an old friend from high school just got into the program a few months ago and it's a very intelligent system. Even cooler, and to me this is one of the marks of both high quality AND truly good intentions, you can actually buy the cd/dvd for like 80 bucks and learn tons of tests and exercises to use on yourself! Of course that would not be as effective as seeing someone fully trained, but it shows that the guy who started the program actually wants to help and is confident in his program. He has quite a lot of professional athletes (and more all the time) coming in and getting great results, so I am not at all afraid to suggest that you give it a shot, especially after talking to my friend about it.

You are very welcome, and I hope it helps.

[Brendan Coad]

Alright thank you again to everyone who has been providing help. Lower back is finally making some progress and I am able to forward bend a bit without pain now. Here is a video of the limit of my pike flexibility. The part where I reach behind my legs and just barely begin to pull is where I stopped because I wanted to see where I could get to without aggravating my lower back. I do realize my knees came slightly unlocked a few times.

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[Joshua Naterman]

You may be interested to know that last week I ran into a yoga instructor who spent 6 months in India studying his art, and he said that their method of opening that area is to keep a flat back with knees on the chest and the legs bent however much you need to in order to maintain that position. From there, you just try and straighten your legs while using your hip flexors to keep your upper body flat against your thighs. This is what I started doing a while ago and made great progress with it, I haven't been practicing my stretches for about 6 weeks now but this is the best way to increase your actual hamstring and hip flexibility without aggravating the lower back. Over time, you will become more and more flexible until you can just fold in half.

He DID say that he stalled out somewhere around where I am at now (well, 6 weeks ago), and that for him the progress came when he started spending a LOT of time doing the stretches, like 30-60 minutes a day just with that one stretch. That makes sense, really. Once you reach the point where you can not make progress despite soft tissue work, PNF/MET and intelligent stretching the obstacle is most likely the physical length of the tissue (nerves and muscles). It takes a while form them to actually get longer and trying to push forward quickly tends to lead to injury.

[Erik Sjolin]

You may be interested to know that last week I ran into a yoga instructor who spent 6 months in India studying his art, and he said that their method of opening that area is to keep a flat back with knees on the chest and the legs bent however much you need to in order to maintain that position. From there, you just try and straighten your legs while using your hip flexors to keep your upper body flat against your thighs. This is what I started doing a while ago and made great progress with it, I haven't been practicing my stretches for about 6 weeks now but this is the best way to increase your actual hamstring and hip flexibility without aggravating the lower back. Over time, you will become more and more flexible until you can just fold in half.

He DID say that he stalled out somewhere around where I am at now (well, 6 weeks ago), and that for him the progress came when he started spending a LOT of time doing the stretches, like 30-60 minutes a day just with that one stretch. That makes sense, really. Once you reach the point where you can not make progress despite soft tissue work, PNF/MET and intelligent stretching the obstacle is most likely the physical length of the tissue (nerves and muscles). It takes a while form them to actually get longer and trying to push forward quickly tends to lead to injury.

That's pretty interesting. Do you have to keep your entire back on the ground (from pelvis to shoulder), or can you allow enough of a bend so that your legs are on your torso?