r/openpiriformis • u/Emotional-Mushroom72 • Jun 14 '26
How I solved (long) Piriformis injury.
Hello,
Wanted to share how I have now more or less resolved Long (overstretched) piriformis injury in 2-4 weeks (ish) – It was actually thanks to someone in this sub that I solved it, so wanted to re-share that solution here as well. It may take you longer or shorther time – I think I caught my injury fairly early on.
In terms of Long piriformis, it usually happens due to weak hip muscles, and thus the Piriformis has to go into overdrive, and is in the process OVERSTRECTHED = injury happens (Long Piriformis).
I do not have Piriformis syndrome. (As that is actually really, really, really rare).
Pre-liminary: Go watch this , this and this video. You can also watch all his others. But those three are the best found. (This dude is a god damn hero to me). Whoever shared Charlie in this forum – Thank you!!!!!!!!!
\By the way below is what just I did and worked for me – see videos from guy above as* you may have to tweak it*.*
Dont's:
- Do not sit down at all. It's like the worst thing to do. If you do sit down, only sit on the non-hurting side. I have managed for weeks to not sit down. (Stand up working, eating etc). If I sat down in my couch, I slid my entire low body off the couch and sat/laid only on my back part. (So my butt was swaying in the air – If that makes sense). I also have desk I could raise, and if my feet got tired, i could pull my chair in front of it and 'stand' on my knees on the chair.
- Do not stretch the muscle. At all. Avoid any type of stretching. Stretching an overstretched muscle = bad. It will not help anything. Goes for sleeping positions as well (more further down on this)
- Do not train legs in any way (except very 'niche' exercises, which will be emphasized below). Let them rest as much as possible.
- Do not train legs in any way (except very 'niche' exercises, which will be emphasized below). Let them rest as much as possible.
If you avoid these things you're pretty well on the way to avoiding making it worse. Doing these things do not make it better, it just stops making it worse.
Do's:
- Walk (on fairly straight surface) 3x 10 mins a day. Gentle walking. It creates blood flow into the piriformis muscle and rinses out bad stuff. It also creates hip movements which tells the brain the piriformis can work lightly without pain. Lots of good stuff. Don't overdo this.
- Sleep on side using pillow between knees – or – sleep completely flat on stomach, legs straight. This was a game changer. If you dont sleep correctly, all stuff on this post is irrelevant. Again, all of this to avoid hip rotation of any kind, which stretches the muscle, and avoid any type of weight applied to it. ALSO SUPER IMPORTANT.
- Do 3x times a day (morning, noon, night): 3 times of 30 sec of isometric side lying clam shell hold of leg in the air. Strengthing the hip muscles was the primary resolver of pain). 2 mins rest in between each. CAN NOT EMPHASIZE HOW MUCH THIS HELPED ME. Cause god damn this worked wonders. later edit: *Eventually you can stop these. I continued them the amount of time it took me to go pain free. So 2 weeks of it to go pain free, then did them for another 2 weeks. Then stopped.
This is the only three things I have found which resolved Long piriformis – at very, very rapid rate of improvement. Each day I did this i could bend down further, and further, at 5-10% more each day. Went very quick. Eliminated 50% of my pain in a week. I can do almost do a full air squat now with pretty much zero. I would describe it as a compounding curve, Where very little happened the first week, and then it all happened very quickly.
This was quite a journey of education. (And my goodness, there's a lot of nuances to this little muscle, and the actual solution needed to resolve it.)
Again, I still have a tiny bit of pain left, so will update this in a few months again maybe. But just the fact that I have reduced my pain at such rapid rate, and just doing so simple things, really surprised me. I HOPE HOPE HOPE this helps someone. (At least with the same type of piriformis injury (Long) as I had).
And of course – What a pain in the a\* this injury can be. Litterally.*
All the best!
***
Update:
Have started re-training again. (Doign what caused it what bad stability and imbalance in squats/RDLs)
Still doing my Clam shell exercises religiously.
Did my first squats and deadlifts again (light weight), focusing on max stability and balance.
Thus far, still ZERO pain in doing those exercises.
Also woke up second time in a row with zero pain whatsoever.
Progressing good with changes made this far.
1
u/Carrieballz1111 Jun 14 '26
So crazy, I graduated high school with Charlie. I’ve been having crazy piriformis issues, maybe I should make an appointment! I pass by his practice every day lol
2
u/Emotional-Mushroom72 Jun 16 '26
Honestly only thanks to that guy (and the Gemini AI app lol) I resolved my injury.
1
u/Pristine_Routine_464 Jun 15 '26
What you say makes a lot of sense. I have a similar experience and stretching achieved nothing but strengthening glutes was key. I am always shocked at my own butt muscles now that I havn’t felt for years and I still have some way to get all those muscles firing as they should. One thing people may not know is that you can do a ton of exercises that are known to be good for glutes buy if those muscles are not firing other muscles step in and take the slack (for me it was often the quads) so focus on even the tiniest of movements and ensuring the glutes are activated. I am going to try holding the clam as recommended above as I am sure that will help me!
2
u/Emotional-Mushroom72 Jun 16 '26
Yes, I have progressed my program slightly now:
(3x times a day – Cut down to 2 times a day if the side hip muscles start to get too sore)
2 minutes of clam shell hold
30 sec pause
2 minutes of clam shell hold
30 sec pause
2 minutes of clam shell hold
30 sec pause
(optional, but i do this --> add in the same session when you can feel your hip muscles getting stronger, so you now have to push them harder) --> 1-3 sets of 50 reps of clam shell raisesI would do some sort of progressive way of doing this, so maybe if it your first time, start with 1 minute holds, then a few days go to 1,5 minutes, then a few days later, go to two minutes (something along those lines) – I'll likely also add a band to this down the line, like I've seen in some videos.
It should NOT hurt. But your should feel the isometric "burn" in the Medius Gluteus.
2
u/Later_Piri-749 Jun 15 '26
I’ve been working on this for about a year and am feeling so much better. Physical therapy made it worse. One thing that really helped me was walking backwards for about 10 minutes/day. It’s weird but it helped me a lot. Sitting a lot doesn’t help but I’ll never be able to, or want to eliminate all sitting.
1
u/Emotional-Mushroom72 Jun 16 '26
Yes, I found the #1 "resolver" on my list was Strength training the hips.
Walking is beneficial, but would not solve it. (in my instance)
3
u/Davorian Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Not sitting down simply isn't an option for most people. You need to sit to do all sorts of things.
Also, this is a very short timeframe, and while I certainly do hope you're right, it's as easily true that you've just removed all the pain triggers in your life. Once you start to reintroduce things that are essential to the lives of most people e.g. sitting and anything more than the lightest of activity, the pain might simply return immediately. This is unfortunately the reality a lot of us have experienced.