A Catalyst Success Story: Runner Back on Track

    I am a very active person, and an avid cyclist.  I bought my first nice bike years ago after I was told I couldn’t run anymore.  As a runner, this was devastating to hear.  As the therapist I would become years later, it was a good learning experience to have.  Runners don’t like to stop running.  Period.

    Incidentally, yes, I can run, and I do.  I had a totally fixable muscle imbalance.

    I have a special place in my heart for my running clients who come in, broken and hurting and scared that they won’t be able to run anymore.  Such was the case of an avid marathoner who came in with a debilitating pain in his lower gluteal region.  Incidentally, being Minnesotan, he found even admitting to a pain in his rear end to be horribly embarrassing.  It had gotten to the point that it hurt even when he wasn’t running, and running was now completely out of the question.

    I reassured him that glute issues are incredibly common, that the glutes are some of the largest and most powerful muscles in the body, that I could work them through the sheets and not expose him, and that on assessing him, I thought he had a hip flexor issue anyway, not a glute issue.

    Sure enough.  I treated his hip flexor.  That allowed his pelvis to go back to neutral.  That released the pull on his upper hamstring attachment.  The pain in his glute released.  I gave him home care exercises and stretches and told him to come back in two weeks. 

    Two weeks later, he was glowing.  He had completed a six-mile run the day before, pushing the envelope because he knew he was coming in to see me.  He had very minimal symptoms.  I worked on him again and encouraged the home care again.  I haven’t seen him since.

    How do I know he’s doing well?   He’s referred about a dozen clients in to my practice.