Hello MWodders,

I’ve been a member of MWOD Pro for about 7 or 8 months now and been trying to get my head around the ideas so I can work out how to apply it to my issues and exercise and start moving and exercising correctly. I would really appreciate a little guidance from anyone with more knowledge than me though because I’m just completely stuck at the moment.

I have a left hip issue that started over a year ago and this is really my main focus at the moment because I don’t think I can do anything until this is sorted, here’s a brief history, I hope you don’t mind:

Feb 2017: Went for a hill run and noticed groin pain afterwards (never had that after a run – plenty of times after football, but never running!)

March: 2017: Climbed a mountain and experienced the same pain but a lot worse, hurt to press the clutch/brake on the drive back. As it settled down, the whole hip didn’t feel quite right.

May: 2017: Did a circuit class involving leg raises, bodyweight squats, jumping lunges, press ups, sit ups. Next day experienced burning pain all around the hip which lasted a week, then as it settled, experienced back pain (close to the SI joint) when bending and twisting.

Physio said it was tightness and gave me strengthening exercises and and stretches. They didn’t seem to work at first so I stopped but then towards the end of 2017 I picked them up again and also started running slowly. I got groin pain once or twice but I just stopped straight away.

Fast forward to now and the back pain has reduced quite significantly but the problem now seems to be more in the glute region – all across the left buttock and towards the sacrum. I started doing clams, monster band walks, hip bridges, some couch stretch and some ab work and that got me running 3/4 miles at an easy pace everyday but I always felt something going on in the background and could always feel something in the glute region, although not painful.

So I started doing more dynamic strengthening, including single leg squats and lunges, which really irritated it and left me with a dull ache in the sacrum when I ran. I have a feeling that the jumping lunges started the issue and the lunges here also set me back, but could be wrong. 

Mainly when I run and sometimes when I squat (which is 3 or 4 times a month at the moment!) I get a feeling of tightness in different areas of the buttock and sometimes this dull ache near the sacrum.

Some other things I noticed – 

• My left hip is higher than my right and also, my left leg is longer. I would have thought the left leg would be shorter with a left hip hiked up! I’ve looked at lifestyle factors here and my driving position might be to blame – although I don’t drive daily I do tend to be in the car for long journeys when I do drive. And I used to drive at least 2 hours a day a few years ago.
• My right foot turns out – again maybe because it’s turned out when driving.
• I think I have some sort of hip impingement on the left side. It doesn’t seem as free on the left side
• I have a sharp pain in the bottom of my left ribcage when I bend or twist to the right. I think this started around Christmas. Sometimes I’ll be doing some exercise or some mobility work and it’ll disappear for a few seconds and come back. This has really started hurting lately.