When Life Gives You Lemons

I've been really enjoying my down time but I had planned on getting back into the swing of things this weekend.  That was until my body had other plans.  

Last Friday I emailed my chiro / ART guy to fill him in on how Lake Placid went and to say Thank You.  I said something like "Since I won't need to come in and see you any time soon...." yada yada yada.   The following Monday, I was back in his office.  Yup.  I totally jinxed myself.  

What did I do?  Well preliminary results say that I have ischiogluteal bursitis.  What the heck is that?  

A bursa is a fluid filled sac that is situated between the tendon and the bone and it helps to reduce friction between the two.  When a bursa is subjected to repeated stress it will swell and get inflamed.   Ischiogluteal means that this bursa is in my glute situated near the ischial tuberosity, which are essentially your sit bones.  Your hamstring muscles originate at the ischial tuberosity.  This is where I tore my hamstring last year.  Not fun.  The hamstring tendon, also originates at the ischial tuberosity.  The bursa in question is located in between the tendon, my pelvic bone and three small muscles in my glute:  the piriformis, the obturator interns and the gemellus superior.

As you can see, there are a lot of things around this bursa that when they get overworked, can cause the bursa to become inflamed.   Truthfully I'm not surprised this happened.  I've put a lot of stress on my glutes recently, especially with the addition of teaching a lower body conditioning class.   It was getting ready for that class that actually brought me back into my Chiro's office.  It was a very simple move, I was bent forward with my legs split, like I was getting ready to do a split squat and I was trying to find comfortable footing for a standing bent over row.  I found it and then pushed off to stand up again and that's when I felt my glute spasm.  It hurt so much I couldn't put any pressure on it.  I could walk but it was awkward.  I definitely couldn't go up stairs.  So that afternoon I found myself back at Pivot.  I was instructed to not do anything, except to get an ultrasound, ice, rest and take some anti inflammatories,  until we had a better idea of what was going on.  

So, what to do with all my non workout spare time?  Well let's see:

*  SLEEP IN!  

*  Stay up later than normal reading because I don't have to get up at stupid O'clock.  I managed to finally finish "How Bad Do You Want It" which is amazing considering I started it a month ago.  Lately it's taken me almost 6 months to read one book!  I've now started this.

*  Spend my mornings cooking.  Well, I did that one morning.  I made sweet potato breakfast cookies AND french toast.  

*  Go out with girlfriends you haven't seen in ages and have ice cream

*  Focus on my mobility work.

*  Spend more time focusing on building my business and working on my blog.

*  Be grateful that this happened AFTER my last race of the season.  

I was originally told I'd need to take 2-3 weeks off everything except swimming and pool running.  I took most of the week off with the exception of swimming this morning .  I'm seeing my Chiro again today at lunch and we'll figure out a game plan for my rehab.  At least I know by the time I get back to regular activity, I will definitely be very well rested! 

Life may have just handed me a lemon, but I'm making some pretty awesome lemonade.

Happy Friday!

~ Coach PK