My physical therapy was a success! Goodbye hip pain!

About 3 years ago I was experiencing pain that would start on my right hip and would work its way down all the way to my toes.  It was kind of a dull-ish pain that was achy and then at times stinging depending on my position.  I went to physical therapy about 4 times and they told me it was piriformis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piriformis_syndrome).  They gave me some tips on how to stretch and what exercises would "loosen" it up for me.  Spinning was the best thing that I found to remedy my pain and after a few weeks, I had gotten rid of my pain in my ass (pun intended)!

Flash - forward to a few weeks ago: the pain in my ass was back!  Ugh!  So, I tried my stretches, broke out my foam roller and still was experiencing wincing pain all down my right side.

This is obviously not me in the picture.

I went back to physical therapy a couple weeks ago to find out that it was not piriformis syndrome, but my lower back that was causing my nerves to be pinched and for my sciatica to be acting up.

He gave me more stretches to do, mostly laying on my back and bringing my knees into my chest, then back down.  I do this for 10 reps, 4-5 times a day.  These stretches really help to relieve the pain and I was surprised and thankful that their was an easy solution to my pain.

He also said that for the next few months I should not do any kind of movement that would cause me to arch my back, such as:

back kicks in Bodycombat

any kind of glute work (like in my barre class that I was loving)

back bends in yoga (darn!  I was so good at those!)

supermans (I do these all the time when I teach my Core Revolution class)

So, I have changed my routine a bit, but it is paying off because the pain in my ass is gone for now!!