It all started mid-April while I was getting used to squatting: A pain on the right side of my tailbone, going into the gluteal area. It was especially painful when I squeezed my glute muscles. At first I thought nothing of it. “I probably just stretched something, or my muscles are very sore. It will pass!”. And it kinda did. It got better after a week or so, and the pain was not as noticeable anymore. But as soon as I started squatting again, it came back. And again. And again. And so I keept “banging my head against the wall”, so to speak.
I stopped squatting then, let the pain calm down and just waited till I found a physio. I really hoped I could get some help, or at least learn to understand what was going on. Meanwhile I googled, googled and googled myself to insanity. I lost a lot of sleep. I just could not get the thoughts out of my head, and I was very scared of what the pain could be. What if I could never again workout the way I wanted to? Would this never end?
When I finally got an appointment with the physio he examined me. I guess I had hoped that he would find something. Anything, really. Just so I could get an answer and work towards getting better. But he didn’t find too much. At the end of the appointment he said something about that he suspected that my glute medius was weak on the same side I had the pain, and then gave me some exercises. I quickly put them into my program and started working towards a stronger butt. 5 weeks later I went back to him for a checkup, and he then said the problem was fixed. I was very happy. The problem was… as soon as I started squatting again (after my physio told me to do so), the pain “re-opened”. So I knew there had to be something else that was wrong.
I tried contacting my physio again, but he never responded back, so I kinda just gave up on trying to get help. I then started looking at videos of my squats. And that’s when I saw two things: In one of my most recent attempts I had a buttwink, and my upper back was hyperextended (because I was trying very hard to think about the cue “chest up”). I then watched one of my first attempts ever at squat, where my back was flat and natural (no “chest up”), and the buttwink was not happening! It then became clear to me that I had pretty much tried to correct my squat so much that I automatically twisted my body into an unnatural shape.
I stopped squatting again and replaced it with Split Squats / Static Lunges. This exercise did not make the pain come back as it did with the squat, but I would always feel something, but it wasn’t too bad and it didn’t make the pain “reopen”. Rather the area felt … inflamed. So it had kinda calmed down, but never fully. The pain was always there, waiting, like a coming storm. I could feel it almost all the time. Not horrible pain, but something, along with soreness from the right side of the tailbone. It felt very bad sitting on the floor, leaning back a bit. Sometimes the pain would come back fully, even if I wasn’t squatting. One of the exercises that triggered it was the “bent over barbell rows”.
I contacted my doctor and begged for at least an X-ray. He gave it to me along with some ibuprofen (stronger than the normal ones I can pick up at the store) that he told me to test out. While waiting for the X-ray and the results of them, I started testing ibuprofen right after a leg workout. I had of course tried ibuprofen earlier, but never right after a workout. Before I took it, I felt the pain. After, the pain was more or less gone. The day after it was still not back, even if the medication had long lost its effect. It had simply calmed down the inflammation a lot. I still felt the pain somewhat, but it wasn’t as intense as before.
And that is pretty much where I am at now. I have started to understand that this might have to do with bad form over time, even if the weight was low, but yet I don’t understand anything at all. I also know I’ve had this pain before, years ago, while deadlifting. It went away back then as soon as I removed deadlift from my program. And it came back again with the squat. They are both hip hinges. All other exercises (except bent over rows) feel fine. Even hip thrust. It does not seem like the pain is in the glutes themself, but the pain is aggravated when I squeeze them, like it’s pushing or pulling on something.
The X-ray luckily came back fine, so that means there is nothing wrong with the bone structure in that area.
I have now decided to take a one or two weeks break from strength training and just do some easy mobility stretches. Then we will see how my body responds to that.