The Likely Culprit

After some consultation with Dr. Gilbert and some research on my part, I hope I may have finally discovered the root of a lot of my problems over the last several years. I think it could very well be related to weakness in my gluteus medius. If you take a look at this article, it gives the whole rundown, but several things in there pretty much describe me to a "t." As you can see if you click the link, the article starts out, "Gluteus medius weakness, Sean Fyfe says, is a likely culprit in many overuse injuries. The gluteus medius should be considered in every running injury." It goes on to list symptoms and problems gluteus weakness can cause, and that would explain a lot of what I've been going through, not only in my hips, glutes, and back but also peroneal and achilles problems as well as sometimes feeling like I have too much pronation even though neutral shoes work best for me and stable ones generally just lead to even bigger problems. At any rate, I've begun working on strengthening the muscle, and man is it weak. You don't realize things like that until you isolate it and try to strengthen it, but I've got a definite weak link there. Hopefully as I get it stronger, it and the other core work I'm now doing will help stabilize my whole pelvis and keep me in alignment and on the road.

Speaking of alignment, I went back to see Dr. Gilbert last night. The good news is I went 6 for 6 in the tests he did at the beginning of the visit, meaning everything held up over the three days since I last saw him. He said that as bad as things were on Monday he would have guessed that I would have had at least one and probably two or three weaknesses, so the fact that I had none was good. He then went on to say that he is always amazed at two things from me. First, that I never come to see him when I have a minor problem but wait until I can't run and then let him do damage control. He said that if I would come in from time to time for preventative maintenance I could probably avoid the major disasters. I know I've said it before, but I think I'm really gonna try to make a visit every 3-4 weeks part of my normal routine from here on out and see what happens. Maybe if I do that and strengthen my core at the same time I can actually stay straight. The other thing the doc said amazes him about me is how quick I heal. He said I respond really well to treatment, hence why I had no weaknesses last night after being in pathetic shape on Monday. His assessment was I must be really healthy and in good shape. Ha - I wish!

Anyway, that's the latest on my status. I'm not sure when I'll try to run again. Like Dr. Gilbert said last night, I've maintained strength for four days, meaning I've had that much healing time, but four days likely isn't enough to let everything settle down based on how aggravated it was. He told me he thought I'd be alright to run as long as I didn't try to turn an inch into a mile, but I'm taking today off for sure and may just take this whole week off. I'm working my core muscles pretty hard right now trying to build up some strength, so I don't know that I need to do that and try to resume running. Might be better to absorb some of the core work and let things continue to heal then take a shot sometime next week. That's what I'm leaning towards at the moment at least, but we'll see. That's all for me. Hope everyone has a great weekend (last one before Christmas)!