Irritated hip during external rotation poses

Please use this forum to ask any questions you may have about yoga in general or Yin Yoga in particular, or to discuss anything you have discovered that may be of general interest. Note, spam will be removed and the user deleted, and this includes putting website in your posting that are purely commercial.
Post Reply
Dennis63
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:22 pm

Irritated hip during external rotation poses

Post by Dennis63 »

Hello forum
I am trying to wok on sitting on the floor comfortably. However, every time I work on my hip rotation externally my left hip seems to get irritated, feeling like some milder inflammation. I startet with solace pose, have tried the swan, eye of the needle and also plain sitting cross legged and leaning forward. It seems that my hip is not happy with any kind of external rotation. I have had a go at this for 3 periodes, where rest and not working this area at all has cured the problem within a month or so. Once again when I start working on the area, after a few weeks the issue is back. And of course it is not so easy to sit on the floor without being able to externally rotate the hips, to get my legs out in a cross legged seated position.

The problem spot is on the outside of the hip bone, some googling for a non medical person like me, it seems to be where in the neighborhood of where the Tensor fasciae latae is connected to the hip bone.

Is this a muscle that is easily being "overstretched" by the poses I mentioned above, or are there any other typical spots here that easily gets irritated when working on external rotation? Anyone who had this problem and found some good poses to increase mobility without irritating this area? I have tried butterfly, which seems to be OK if done carefully 2 - 3 times a week, but will this be sufficient to increase mobility in this area in a way that I later can go for more "serious" hip opening poses. What do you guys think?

PS: My hips are not super tight, probably average. (However that can be measured...)

I am very grateful for any good suggestions!
Bernie
Posts: 1292
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:25 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: Irritated hip during external rotation poses

Post by Bernie »

Hi Dennis

Many people have restrictions that prevent them from being comfortable in externally rotated hip postures, but the experience of pain is a red flag. The first step is to try to figure out why it hurts and then secondly why you are restricted. My first question is — have you seen a health care professional? A doctor or physical therapist would be far better to ask than a yoga teacher. I am not a doctor, so please take all my suggestions with many grains of salt and do see a professional.

Since I have not seen you in person, I can only speculate about a few things. You may have trochanter bursitis. You may have a labral tear. There are lots of things that you may have that are causing the pain, which again is why I suggest you seek professional advice. (The above links may be useful to give you some suggestions of what to do in those particular cases.)

Once you determine the source of your pain, you can start to look at why you are restricted. One question I would have is — have you always found these postures challenging, or is it the restriction relatively recent? Could you easily do these type of postures 10 or 20 years ago? If not, the restrictions may be due to the shape, size and structure of your bones. (There are many threads on this forum discussing external rotation of the femur in the hip socket. For example, this one. You can also enter "hip external rotation" in the search bar above to see other posts.) If you are restricted due to bony compression, this will not change so the challenge for you is to accept that your range of motion is limited and not try to go past those limits. However, if you used to be far more flexible, it is likely that some soft tissue restrictions are preventing you from going further. With careful practice, over time, you may be able to increase your range of motion. But, first, figure out the answer to the What Stops Me? question. This thread may also be helpful.

In all the above cases, I would suggest you adopt the habit of using props while doing externally rotated poses. Props can prevent you from going too deep in the pose where you may be continuing to injure already traumatized tissues. For example, for Shoelace pose put a block between the top and bottom thigh and a folded towel under the bottom leg. When you sit cross-legged, place blocks under both knees/thighs. Find the position where there is no pain, but hopefully still some challenge.

Finally, I don't think your pain is coming from a muscle, like the tensor fascia, being overstretched. I suspect the trochanter bursa is inflammed. But that is a wild-ass guess, and again I suggest you go get it checked out.

I hope some of this helps!
Cheers,
Bernie
Dennis63
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:22 pm

Re: Irritated hip during external rotation poses

Post by Dennis63 »

Hello Bernie, thanks for your thorough reply!
I have read all of it this evening, including the links, and there is a lot to digest here. I will contact a physical therapist that I have consulted for some other sports injuries earlier, to get her opinion with regards to what the irritation might come from. Also to get some further guidance of how to proceed.

I will post the results on the forum when I have something to report, in hope that it can be of help to others.

Best for Torbjørn.
Bernie
Posts: 1292
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:25 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: Irritated hip during external rotation poses

Post by Bernie »

Good plan! Good luck!
Dennis63
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:22 pm

Re: Irritated hip during external rotation poses

Post by Dennis63 »

Hello again
I have now been examined by a physical therapist that concluded with mild trocanther bursitis. She said it could very well come from my yoga, probably because some poses had put pressure on the hip. She recommended to try "open" poses like the standing swan, or lying flat on the floor doing eye of the needle. Furthermore to avoid poses where I bent over my hip doing the stretch. I am a bit uncertain how to classify the poses this way, but will study your book and see if I can figure it out. Anyway, as soon as my hip is starting to feel better I will try again to do some light external hip rotation poses. I guess I just have to listen to my body and figure out what poses are good and which to avoid, taking things really slow.

Thanks for your advice and help, Bernie

PS: In studying the feedback in this thread I discovered the bananasana pose. 2-3 minutes on each side after my ordinary post running stretches was simply wonderful!
Bernie
Posts: 1292
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:25 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: Irritated hip during external rotation poses

Post by Bernie »

Hi Dennis

It is helpful to put a name to your condition. One theory was trochanter bursitis, and as you know, this thread had some suggestions for that. I am happy that Bananasana seems to be helpful!

Postures with external rotation and a lot of abduction could be creating compressive stress on the bursa, so the advice to avoid external rotation postures, like Swan/Pigeon, makes some sense, especially if it is combined with abducting the leg. Eye-of-the-needle pose is also external rotation but with very little abduction. Even better might be Shoelace which is external rotation and adduction. That may prevent any compressive stress near the trochanter bursa.

As you have discovered, apply tension across the bursa may be therapeutic. Bananasana does this as can Reclining Twist with the top leg straight out to the side, or maybe even deeper with that top knee hugged towards the floor. Another option, if you can get to the floor in Saddle Pose, add an upper body sidebend to it (the Banana is the Saddle option!)

Good luck with your recovery.
Bernie
Post Reply