Extremely Tight Muscles greatly decreasing my performance. Cannot get any answers.

    Posted In: Sprints

        • Member
          Zane Evans on January 23, 2012 at 1:56 pm #18142

          I have been seeing a physical therapist for about 6 months in regards to some tight hip flexors and shoulders. I as well as my PT have come to the realization that it isn’t just my hips and my shoulders, but in fact my entire body is extremely unflexible and very painful to work on.

          Glute medius
          Calves
          Psoas & Illiacus
          Lower Back
          TFL
          Peronial muscles
          Adductors
          Chest
          Neck
          ^^^^^^^
          All extremely tight and almost unbareable to massage/release.

          Also the rigorous stretching program i have made hasn’t improved anything at all besides my chest.

          Despite going through the pain of trying to release these muscles, all seem to have not budged one bit. This has gotten me to look into other posibilities such as Mineral Deficiencies and my PH levels in my body. I’ve been some minerals for a while, haven’t done much other than keep the muscle cramps away.

          Because my calves and hips are so tight, i cannot get proper extension out of my drive phase or any phase for that matter. I feel like i cannot push. I also externally rotate my legs abotu 45 degrees every stride i take.

          These problems are killing my times on the track. My 60m time is a 7.01, but I know I can do much better. Strength isn’t an issue, I am 148lbs and powerclean 205×10.

          Any ideas on what can be causing my tightness? and how I can address the issue? This is driving me crazy.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on January 23, 2012 at 2:29 pm #114238

          Mostly explosive plyometrics and weights twice a week.

        • Member
          Zack Trapp on January 23, 2012 at 3:13 pm #114240

          Mostly explosive plyometrics and weights twice a week.

          I might suggest three times a week on the weights, and once or maybe twice on plyos. How do you/ how much do you stretch before and after workouts? What does your warm-up look like? If you’re feeling tight, a massage could be good. Or at least a foam roller.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on January 23, 2012 at 3:25 pm #114242

          My warm up is pretty good, i get really really warm before I take my sweats off and get into the workout. I have gotten manual massages and tried to have my muscles released but they just won’t. and Foam rollers haven’t done anything for me at all either.

          As for my training, I am working with Tony Wells of the Colorado Flyers and he has us do explosive plyometrics everyday in the off season, and now that we are in season we are only doing them twice a week while the remaining days are for block work and speed/strength endurance with some advanced plyometrics.

        • Participant
          linas767@gmail.com on January 23, 2012 at 7:03 pm #114246

          could you post your weekly training setup? I’m interested how many intensive and easy days you have.

        • Participant
          lewisna@plu.edu on January 25, 2012 at 1:00 pm #114338

          Considering the length of time you have mentioned, have you seen your doctor for full blood testing to see if there are biological precursors to this? May seem silly but in my own experience i have seen a lot of rare disorders that cause a long list of symptoms. However the training program analysis is also very logical

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 1, 2012 at 9:51 am #114464

          Yes i am getting a blood test here in about two weeks. And the program is amazing, Coach Wells is an absolute master of sprints.

        • Participant
          Carl Valle on February 1, 2012 at 10:44 am #114465

          Considering the length of time you have mentioned, have you seen your doctor for full blood testing to see if there are biological precursors to this? May seem silly but in my own experience i have seen a lot of rare disorders that cause a long list of symptoms. However the training program analysis is also very logical

          Could you list your blood analysis metrics? What do you suggest Zane capture?

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 1, 2012 at 4:39 pm #114473

          Sorry Linas, Im not sure my coach would want me giving that out.

        • Participant
          linas767@gmail.com on February 1, 2012 at 6:35 pm #113899

          As for my training, I am working with Tony Wells of the Colorado Flyers and he has us do explosive plyometrics everyday in the off season, and now that we are in season we are only doing them twice a week while the remaining days are for block work and speed/strength endurance with some advanced plyometrics.

          I asked about weekly setup b/c you mentioned that in season you do explosive plyos twice a day and remaining days are for block and speed/strength endurance with some advanced plyos. might be the reason why you feel tightness so stretching and even massage won’t solve that. Maybe other athletes in your group can keep with that setup but your body might not. I don’t say that program is responsible for that but I guess it might be. Maybe you would feel better if you allow your body with more easy days between high intensity workouts, so easy days don’t include explosive plyos and faster runs.

        • Participant
          JeremyRichmond on February 1, 2012 at 10:25 pm #114475

          I have been seeing a physical therapist for about 6 months in regards to some tight hip flexors and shoulders. I as well as my PT have come to the realization that it isn’t just my hips and my shoulders, but in fact my entire body is extremely unflexible and very painful to work on.

          Glute medius
          Calves
          Psoas & Illiacus
          Lower Back
          TFL
          Peronial muscles
          Adductors
          Chest
          Neck
          ^^^^^^^
          All extremely tight and almost unbareable to massage/release.

          Also the rigorous stretching program i have made hasn’t improved anything at all besides my chest.

          Despite going through the pain of trying to release these muscles, all seem to have not budged one bit. This has gotten me to look into other posibilities such as Mineral Deficiencies and my PH levels in my body. I’ve been some minerals for a while, haven’t done much other than keep the muscle cramps away.

          Because my calves and hips are so tight, i cannot get proper extension out of my drive phase or any phase for that matter. I feel like i cannot push. I also externally rotate my legs abotu 45 degrees every stride i take.

          These problems are killing my times on the track. My 60m time is a 7.01, but I know I can do much better. Strength isn’t an issue, I am 148lbs and powerclean 205×10.

          Any ideas on what can be causing my tightness? and how I can address the issue? This is driving me crazy.

          Start with your calves…when you rub across the muscle fibres does it feel like you’ve run your finger across a rope? Or does it feel like their are lumps within the muscle?

          Test front of calves and back of calves and get back to me.

          Even look at where your traps meet the shoulders…you’ll probably find some trigger points there which will give you an idea of what I’m looking for.

        • Participant
          mortac8 on February 2, 2012 at 5:46 am #114486

          Continue to monitor the urine ph and mineral intake.

          Try Rolfing or similar bodywork techniques. I understand your plight but if your massage guy/bodyworker goes slow enough, it won’t be unbearable.

          As others have said, there could be some underlying mystery cause but I don’t know what that would be.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 2, 2012 at 7:11 am #114489

          Lina- Since i’ve been working with Tony I feel much better, and less tight than i used to in high school. In high school my shoulders and neck were so tight, I would have migraines for weeks on end. basically my body is holding up better than it used to doing explosive plyometrics and short sprints as opposed to my old workouts which was 5-8x200m a day.

          Jeremy- I felt my calves and peronials and they don’t seem to be bumpy at all. I have gotten graston on my calves many times, and the muscles seem pretty smoothed out, no scar tissue. As for my traps and shoulders, I definately have some scar tissue there, and some extremely painful trigger points. My inner hamstring on each leg is extremely tight as well, and feels like rope. Done graston on it a few times, sounds like a cheese grater on over-drive.

          Mortac-Did slow-gentle massage and it does nothing, slow-deep and im jumping off the table. I have been taking my PH and i am pretty acidic, so i have been balancing out my diet and taking mineral supplements. I’ve seen a little improvement in my flexiblity, but not much. It has helped me sleep better if anything.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 2, 2012 at 7:17 am #114490

          If anything has helped, It was getting worked on my Michael Leahy. He is our team go-to guy when we are injured. He created Active Release Technique and all that jargen, the bad thing is i can’t go see him regularly because he charges 100$ for one 10-15 minute appointment.

        • Participant
          JeremyRichmond on February 2, 2012 at 10:41 am #114497

          Jeremy- I felt my calves and peronials and they don’t seem to be bumpy at all. I have gotten graston on my calves many times, and the muscles seem pretty smoothed out, no scar tissue. As for my traps and shoulders, I definately have some scar tissue there, and some extremely painful trigger points. My inner hamstring on each leg is extremely tight as well, and feels like rope. Done graston on it a few times, sounds like a cheese grater on over-drive.

          Would be too difficult to assess over the internet. I’ve met many athletes (and hardcore trainers) that have what sounds like you have; trigger points, reciprocal inhibition and guaranteed performance reduction. I’ve even seen someone considered for back surgery but had tight psoas and tight tibialis anterior and extensor hallicus longus. Muscles will get tighter and tighter as your body continues to recruit muscles in compensatory / alternate patterns in order to complete the movement task. You will need to break it down bit by bit.
          The neck is always guaranteed to have trigger points; they are universally referred to as trigger points but they will be called something else in the future and it takes an experienced person to find them but they feel like a piece of string when you rub (medium deep) across the line of the muscle fibres.
          The psoas is one of the muscles regularly inhibited; if that is not working ideally, your body will devise other strategies to lift up your leg when running (use rectus femoris, TFL, tib anterior, and muscles that lift up the toes) and overdoing this strategy will result in muscles that are tight (hypertoned likely) and these will weaken their antagonist muscles.
          You’ll need to find a skilled therapist or do a course yourself so you can self-manage. If you are desperate, try some deep breathing exercises when lying down in a starfish type position. This may relieve the diaphragm and the psoas and break the sequence of malrecruitment. However there is probably only a 25% chance that this will work but fix the trigger points around the neck and this may rise to near 50%. Good luck with it all and keep us updated if you attempt this method of therapy.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 2, 2012 at 2:08 pm #114503

          I’ll definately try the breathing Jeremy. My diaphragm is extremely restricted, manual work on it was rediculously painful.

          I think my current therapist, yourself, and I would agree that my psoas/Illiacus are a huge factor. I can’t extend at the hip without arching my back, My TFL is humongous, and I had a pretty bad rectus femoris strain about two months ago.

          It just astounds me that every single muscle in my body won’t budge.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 10, 2012 at 3:26 pm #114684

          Just got off the phone with a neuromuscular expert today at the Gait Lab in Denver. The person I talked too was also a Sports PT, so she seemed excited and determined to figure out a diagnosis.

          I know for sure my extreme tightness is attributed to more than just training hard. at least 90% of my muscles are rediculously tight and very painful to work on, including my jaw muscles and even spanning up to my sub-occipital region and my fingers & toes.

          Man i tell you, if I get a diagnosis and finally get my body moving correctly Im feeling a 6.5 and a 10.00 🙂

        • Participant
          neal45@comcast.net on February 10, 2012 at 5:47 pm #114686

          I would cut back drastically on strength training and high intensity plyos to decrease tightness. Repeatedly making your muscles do plyos and strength training can be hard on joints and muscles. You may be wearing yourself down.I noticed I perform way better loose anyways and thats why I do minimal amounts of strength training only to prevent injury. If I was you I would play some basketball,or some other recreational activities, and do some distance do loosen up. You may want to relax too. This will build back some of the elastic “loose” feelings back in your movement. I just noticed I move,perform, and react better when I am more loose. You don’t really have to take my advice its really just a suggestion.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 10, 2012 at 6:03 pm #114688

          Meh strength training and plyometrics are the only way i will get faster. And upon some expert insight, it seems more neurological than overtraining.

          I also find that when i stop working out, that my tightness gets even worse. So keeping a move on helps to some degree, but isn’t solving the issue.

          Currently, from my own research, i’ve found two that seem correspond with my symptoms. Hypokalemia and Multilevel Nerve Compression.

        • Participant
          comando-joe on February 10, 2012 at 11:55 pm #114689

          I have a similar problem to you. I can stretch all day and nothing gets better, but recently i took a week off and didnt even stretch or foam roll. Now everything hurts big time. All i was doing was maintaining and i thought it was doing nothing.

          Does your physio get in deep? I had a physio for a while last to help with rehab after surgery, he got me on a tems machine and said it would stretch everything out. For that month i actually felt good. And when he did massage, it was like torture.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 11, 2012 at 4:10 pm #114702

          Exactly! we share the same problems.

          Yeah my PT gets in deep, everyone in his office laughs at me because I am yelling 90% of the time.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on February 22, 2012 at 4:51 pm #114927

          Got some news, My PT has been working with the CU hospital Sports Medicine Head and his refering me to him. My PT has an amazing reputation and is one of the best in Denver, and he tells me this guy at CU is on a totally different level. I am looking forward to meeting with this guy.

          I really wish I could have been diagnosed and cured earlier in the year though…I feel my times would have been down enough to go where i want to go for track. My NCAA clock is ticking, i only have 3 years left…

        • Member
          Zane Evans on March 13, 2012 at 2:09 pm #115112

          I got a free dry-needle treatment today from an associate of my PT’s, and the results were absolutely astounding.

          In this picture, My shoulders are at the bottom, glutes at the top. Left is before treatment (6 pack on my back, I know), middle is after two dry-needle’s to the Glutes, the Right is after a few in my Spinal Erectors and a few more on my Glutes.

          I have also come to figure out my PH levels in my body are very acidic, I took a ltms. Test and I was way below 5.5 (5.5 was the farthest is would go). I probably have acidosis.

        • Participant
          Craig Pickering on March 14, 2012 at 1:50 am #115352

          Great news. I use acupuncture quite a bit, really useful for controlling muscular spasm in the back I have found. In the first image, you can see how locked up your whole back musculature is, and how it is returning to normal by picture 3. Was the needling sore?

          Regarding the pH levels, what is the information you have been doing to improve this? Is it purely dietary?

        • Member
          Zane Evans on March 14, 2012 at 6:59 am #115359

          My whole body is like the first image, I don’t understand how i even move. Yes the needling left me pretty sore, it was also very painful for me.

          My Team PT told me I was probably Acidic and gave me a good book called –Molecular Fitness; The connexin connection to optimal health– The book mainly tackles the dietary aspect of balancing pH levels. One big factor I have come across is that because my body is acidic, my muscles become stripped of minerals and they will not absorb any minerals until I become more alkaline.

          Another recent discovery, is that I cannot extent from my ankles. My calves are so tight they simply do not allow for ankle extension, and therefore I extend using my toes. This explains issues with my drive phase. Not only does it explain my inability to “drive” or push, but it explains why I am hunched over and leaning too far foward out of the blocks because my body is trying to compensate to get proper shin angles.

        • Participant
          Craig Pickering on March 14, 2012 at 8:38 am #115361

          Sounds like everything is moving in the right direction then. Will you be having dry needling in other muscle groups too?

          Id be interested in knowing what you will do for the acidic muscles, so keep me posted.

        • Participant
          oshikake@ymail.com on March 14, 2012 at 11:12 am #115376

          .

        • Member
          Zane Evans on April 3, 2012 at 7:43 am #115886

          Sorry I haven’t been able to reply, I’ve been
          Pretty busy the past few weeks.

          To answer a few of your questions Craig, I have gotten more dry-needle on my body. I have had two more treatments on my calves and another on my TFL area and adductors. Awesome results, I will still need more treatment on the same areas though.

          My calves were extremely painful to work on. I was screaming 100% of each treatment.Each treatment
          For my calves consisted of about 30 needles
          Per calve on my perionials, ant. Tibialus, gastro’s and soleus. My peronials were so tight my PT actually bent several needles trying to get into the muscle.

          My adductors and TFL area were Just as tight, but not as painful. Several needles bent
          On my TFL. Range of motion improved greatly.

          I am planning in getting more treatments done on my calves, hips, lays, and chest.

          As far as my balancing my Ph Craig, I am cutting back slightly on grains and protein and have been slamming down fruits and vegetables. Mostly spinach, raisins, carrots and bananas. Still no major change in my Ph, but I am definitely sleeping much better.(which is a sign my body is becoming more alkaline.)

        • Participant
          Craig Pickering on April 3, 2012 at 10:26 am #115888

          Thats all good news then. Sometimes I find it hard to eat loads of veg, so if you are struggling one then I do is just stick it all in a blender and drink it down. Spinach is awesome for lowering pH, also look at kale (similar to spinach).

        • Participant
          comando-joe on April 3, 2012 at 9:47 pm #115895

          When you mentioned about ph levels i decided to look into it. Right away i got on a diet, alot of green tea, mix veg with avarcardos, alkaline drops in all my water. Took out most sugar including sweetners (didnt know but aspartame is very acid) and i can move much more free now after just 2 weeks.

        • Member
          Zane Evans on May 22, 2012 at 5:08 pm #116436

          That good to hear joe.

          It’s been a while since i’ve given an update, so here I go.

          Outdoor has gone okay, my body still is very very tight, but I am seeing some improvements with dry needle.

          Ran a 10.94 into a 3.0 Headwind about two weeks ago, and a 21.99 from lane 2 (I run much better in outside lanes). Still having a really hard time with my drive phase. I also notice that I am spending too much time on the ground, and not enough time in the air. it seems like I am almost skating the whole way down the track compared to the faster sprinters, who “float” better to describe it. The culprit seems to be difficulty getting my hips straight in line with my body, as I am always in Lordosis. I believe being on my toes and not the balls of my feet also contribute to my improper sprinting technique.

          here is my 200m, Im in lane two
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MkVu42SCmM&list=UUFZWL6j5DBNdT1Ef_XTkvAw&index=1&feature=plcp

          Here is my 100m, Lane 7, in which I look like I am skating down the track. (Plug your ears, Nickelback is in the background)

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64s7aEiyBRE&feature=autoplay&list=UUFZWL6j5DBNdT1Ef_XTkvAw&playnext=1

          It’s summer now and I have applied to Colorado State and looking to attend in the fall. Im not certain if I will join their track team, because right now the Colorado Flyers workout is really working for me and everyone I know that goes there says they run a ton.

    Viewing 30 reply threads
    • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.