Problems diagnosed as Osteoarthritis CAN be cured in some cases.

Hi,

When you have any kind of injury your body will adapt in order to protect the injured body part whist it heals. Sometimes, that adaptation to normal posture/movement will remain long after the injury that caused it has healed. In the early days you are unlikely to notice it. Some of your muscles work harder than they should and others don't work hard enough. Over the years, the gap between the strong and the weak muscles widens and this can develop into an imbalance that is severe enough to cause you major problems.

These imbalances are so difficult to fix that health professionals don't bother to try. Most patients will give up before they get results. There isn't much help out there for us.

Due to the way in which the human body works these imbalances spread through the body in set patterns. I have worked out how to diagnose and treat the pattern that caused my hip OA (and I believe many other cases of hip OA). There are other patterns that I could diagnose and speculate about how you would treat them. But as I haven't tried it I can't give such detailed help with these.

For short term relief and management of symptoms I recommend looking into "Self Myofacial Release" and "Trigger Point Therapy". There is a very good book called "The Trigger Point Workbook" that I think anyone with pain and stiffness should own! This won't cure you - it simply provides symptomatic relief. But For some people this alone can get them to a state that they're happy to live with.

With regards to the muscle imbalance - that's fixable but a long haul. It starts with a detailed diagnosis of the imbalance and a very targeted treatment plan. I'm in the final weeks of finishing off a book that explains all the concepts, how to diagnose these imbalances and how to correct that type that I had. So, if you're lucky and have the same basic problem as me (which could lead to pain in any or all joints) it will help you a lot. If you have a different kind of imbalance the book will help get you on the right path.

Health professionals aren't much use with these complex imbalances. However, once you have a basic grasp of what is wrong with you there are a number of health professionals you can recruit to help you with specific aspects of the problem. There are brilliant people out there that have pieces of the puzzle, but you need to take charge of the master plan for completing the puzzle yourself (if that makes sense?). This is what I'm providing in the book and with my web site.

If you go into my profile (click on my name at the top of this post) you'll find my web site address and my mailing list. If you joint the mailing list I'll let you know when the book is ready. Or you can just check my web site every so often. So if the book doesn't help I will still try to do my best via the website (or here) to answer questions.

Hope you're well

I'm having a bit of pain in groin and down myniuter left leg

When.I walk I'm trying to.force my left leg forward... That has helped a bit with walking...

Any ideas

I don't think you should be trying to force that left hip into extension.

The reason you have all this restricted movement is because you're twisted out of position. There is nothing to be gained by forcing that extension as you'll simply be stretching the wrong muscles.

From memory, your left leg is symptomatic and your pelvis is rotating to the left. Assuming I've got that correct, you'll get more benefits from concentrating on extending the right (non symptomatic) hip. If you improve the mechanics in your good hip, the leg on the opposite side will land with the symptomatic hip in a better position and there will be less strain.

So, when your foot on your good (right) side lands, drive forwards with that hip really squeezing your glutes. Swing the left arm back to activate your left lats. This will help to keep your left hip from swinging back. Give it a try and see how it goes. Let your left hip find it's own way of working - don't try and interfere with it.

I suspect the pain you're feeling in your groin is coming from the sartorius and gracilis. The pain down your outer thigh is most likely your TFL. You're probably also getting some pain in the rectus femoris tendon. A bit of MFR should ease that off.

...just to add - your right hip will have a tendency to rotate back as you drive forwards off your left leg. Don't let it. You want that right hip driving forwards only - resist the rotation by engaging left lats and left int. / right ext. oblique.

That's how I felt. Until you approach it the right way it stays jammed stuck. You'll have the book soon, and that will put you in the drivers seat. I explain everything in detail.

You're a trainer, right? Next time you train do hamstring curls. My guess is that on the left side your medial hamstrings are weak and inactive, and on the right side your lateral hamstrings are weak and inactive. Test that and let me know the result. So to target the medial hamstrings turn the foot in, and to turn the lateral hamstrings turn the foot out.

Same with lats - make sure both lats are firing equally strongly.

This is going to sound very sexist, and it's a massive generalization - but one that often seems to hold true. Women are better at listening to their bodies and working with their dysfunction. Men (tend) to have more of a tendency to ignore their body and force it to do things it doesn't want to do. Men therefore (seem) to develop more overuse injuries that make things worse.

Provided I didn't overdo the wrong things (I did a lot, but was selective in my sport/training choices) or force movement my hip didn't want I mostly managed to stay at the level of bad discomfort. I had some periods of days or even months with very, very bad pain.

I struggled for about 7 years before understanding what was wrong with me. Once I understood the nature of the imbalance it probably took a year to get 99% pain free. Then another year to sort out remaining issues. I'll be giving you a better plan of attack, so maybe you can do better.

How long should it take if tackled the right way? Get an accurate diagnosis and fire up the right muscles in the right order and it can be rebalanced very quickly. It's a neural problem more than a physical problem so once you teach your brain what to do correct movement can be restored quite quickly.

BUT

You've probably got things like endpoints and tendonosis - that can take up to 6 months to fully heal. They can't heal until the imbalance is at least partially resolved, and often the imbalance can't resolve until the overuse injury clears up. So a catch 22 situation that needs to be 'coaxed' in the right direction - slowing down progress.

Due to the complexity of the problem it's often not possible to fire up the muscles in the correct order. Sometimes tight, overworked muscles are clamping down making it impossible for the correct muscles to fire. In which case you need to gradually ease things in the right direction - which takes time.

A third party (an expert) can help a bit, but they can't see what's going on in your body. Rely on them too much and they'll take you down a wrong path. You need to learn to understand what's happening and to *feel* how to put it right. That can take a little while.

The diagnosis needs to be accurate and that might involve a bit of trial and error.

I'd say hope to see major improvement and gain confidence you're on the right track within a couple of months (if you get the treatment right), but probably at least a year to get back to full function. Maybe longer.

MY SYMPTOMS

Groin pain when I tried to either extend or flex my hip. Sometimes deep in my groin, and other times running down the inside of my thigh. Sometimes it felt like a pinching sensation in my groin - especially when flexing the hip. Sometimes a sharp, 'catching' pain when I moved the wrong way.

Tight, throbbing sensation down outside of thigh (TFL, vastus lateralis, IT band, lateral hamstring). Sometimes this would turn into a dull ache if I'd been overdoing it.

Pain in glutes. Sometimes it felt like broken glass in the muscle; Sometimes as if bands of tight, inflexible tissue were running through the muscles; sometimes a severe aching sensation - like bad toothache; Sometimes I'd have this 'toothache' pain running down the entire outside of my leg as far as my foot.

I had pain in lots of other joints too.

Burning pain not so much, but I guess occasionally.

ALWAYS a feeling of bad DOMS everywhere.

*** "You've probably got things like endpoints and tendonosis - that can take up to 6 months to fully heal."

Should read - "you've probably got things like tendonitis and tendonosis"

(not sure what's worse - my attrocious spelling or my use of a spell checker!!! )

Our pain symptoms are close to an exact match

I certainly have a lot of overuse issues

I just can't get certain muscles to fire

Your daily pain is worse/was worse than mine

Thanks

I never have pain now - all cleared up once the imbalance was fixed.

I know what's wrong with you without seeing you as I've figured out a predictive model for diagnosing the imbalance. The book will explain all.

It's very reliable (assuming you get the diagnosis right) when it comes to the major muscles acting on the hips and torso. It's a little less reliable once you reach arms and legs as people can compensate in different ways. But in me, the model predicted reliably what pretty much every muscle in my body was doing.

You need to test everything as you go to be sure, but having the predicitive model is a huge help as it lets you figure out what you need to work on first. It makes the whole thing a lot less complex to work with.

That's normal to not be able to fire up some muscles. It's those lazy muscles that are responsible for the problems. The good news is that when they do fire up (which isn't too hard when you know how to isolate them) things start to get back to normal very quickly. You assume your muscles are weak from lack of use, but in my experience the moment you get them firing full strength is often restored immediately. Some take longer to get up to speed.

I used mfr to help with shoulder pain by hitting the scalenes..

Also using mfr on tfl glutes psoas helped a lot today

Did you ever do mfr on a body part more than once a day?

I had bad shoulder pain too. It cleared up when the imbalance was fixed.

Your left hip is symptomatic - right? Which probably means your sacrum is rotating to the left. That causes your spine to bend and rotate the same way - all the way up to your thoracic spine.

At a guess (assuming that your sacrum is rotating left) I'd say that you have weak romboids on the left, weak seratus anterior on the right, tight pec minor on the right, weak RIGHT lumber and thoracic rotators and a weak left lat. It sounds as if you're upper traps are dominant too. left cervical rotators will be weak.

Weak left lat would be the key as that's the prime mover. If it's not working properly other muscles try to take up the slack and this causes a lot of the problems. That's the one to work hard at activating. So for example, when doing lat pull downs, first pull shoulders back and down. This engages both lats. Really feel them both working. Then pull elbows down and out. Train for a a few days like this and it should get the lazy lat working. The others back muscles should start firing up automatically once the lat starts doing it's job properly. This lets the shoulders move more normally. Your right shoulder is probably internally rotated. Work rear deltoids and also lateral raises with good form (pull your shoulders down and back and reach out with the weights rather than up).

Do this in conjunction with firing up the right internal oblique. (I'm assuming the right internal oblique is the lazy one based upon the position that I **THINK** your sacrum is in).

Over time this should help the shoulders a lot. The shoulder pain is probably because the scapular isn't moving correctly.

If you're not sure what side is weak just activate and work both sides. But try and isolate and really feel the muscles working as it's very easy to do these exercises with the wrong muscles.

For example, with one lat not working properly I could do 15 wide grip pullups. With half my core not working I managed a 9 minute plank. It's not about doing exercises - it's about doing them with the right muscles!!!! It's very easy to do fairly extreme stuff using entirely the wrong muscles.

When your body isn't working properly it constantly tightens up. When I was at my worse I'd do MFR several times a day. I used to spend half my life doing it!!!

From my knees I do chops low to high both sides to activate obliques

I think I need to do mfr more

Or did you find it difficult to put your left leg up on something... Like when you tie your shoe?

My problem was in my right hip, but yes - knee to chest or tying shoe laces was a difficult one.

Don't get too side-tracked by MFR. It won't solve anything - it'll only give symptomatic relief.

Although the exercises you're doing are supposed to activate the muscles you're trying to target, your body is dysfunctional and there's a good chance you're using the wrong muscles.

Try this.

Lie flat on back, knees bent and feet flat on the floor hip distance appart.

Press your shoulders into the floor and down towards your feet. Keeping that tension, push your elbows into the floor and pinch them towards each other a little. This should realy fire up your lats. Experiment with this - is one side stronger than the other? If so, focus on that side a bit more. Try and get both sides contracting really hard, and equally.

From the same position, imagine 'pinching' the top/front of the left side of your pelvis towards the bottom right of your rib cage. This should fire up the left internal oblique and right external oblique. Squeeze hard and really think of that left internal oblique contracting hard. Repeat on the other side.

Next contract all obliques together. Think of 'pinching' top/front of pelvis towards bottom/front of rib cage. Squeeze hard and really feel those obliques.

Put it all together. Combine activating the lats with activating the internal obliques.

Think of pulling the top/front of your rib cage towards your shoulder blades. AT THE SAME TIME think of pulling the bottom of your shoulder blades towards the top/front of your rib cage. Imagine the two meeting in the middle.

This should line your entire core up nicely. It should feel quite good.

Give it a try and let me know how you get on.

Interesting...i tried your exercises

I think they will work

While you were recovering or working this.out

You trained martial arts did you lift as well?

I stoped doing martial arts about a year after I was diagnosed. I could have kept doing it, but I'm too competitive. I wouldn't have focussed on rehab and would have made myself worse.

My feeling now is that weight training is the best way to treat this if you enjoy doing it. You need to understand your imbalance though, and how to go about fixing it. The person that's helped me most to understand how the body should work is a trainer that's also a bodybuilder.

I did karate with a left side forwards stance. I didn't practice both sides (as we were always advised to do). That's how I got the imbalance. I think the imbalance you've got is more normal for most people. Just because of the way the body works.