Rehab and muscles I didn't even know I had

I know this blog is supposed to be about running, but since injury is pretty much a given at some point in almost everyone's running life, I'm going to keep talking about mine. Talking about running right now just makes me grumpy because I'm not doing it, anyway!

At physical therapy last Friday, my therapist made a new discovery. My Piriformis Syndrome is not my primary problem. It's a secondary problem to a really tight, spasming psoas major. What the heck is THAT, you might say (because that's exactly what I said.) In short, it's a deep, high hip flexor muscle that allows you to lift your knee. Mine was so tender that when my PT touched it, I just about shot through the roof of the building. It's so tight that it has literally pulled my pelvis out of alignment, which is why my piriformis on that side was working much harder than it should've, leading to the problem I have there. Once that was discovered, I had to do a whole new set of exercises and stretching, and I left PT on Friday barely able to walk at all. The good news is, I'm feeling much better today, and I'm hopeful that now that we've really gotten to the root of the problem, we'll be able to speed along the recovery process.

In the meantime, I'm not supposed to be running more than 4 miles at a time, and I have promised to stop at any point during a run if anything starts to hurt. My PT actually said he wasn't going to tell me NOT to run, although he'd prefer I didn't. He said he knew if he said that, I would just run anyway and not tell him. He'd rather he gave me some limitations and have me be honest about my activity. I am trying to do more on the bike, elliptical and pool. I'm trying aqua jogging out, and that's a nice alternative so far, though NOT THE SAME as running. I miss running!!! Hoping to be back at it in full force soon!!