Hello
I apologize in advance for the length of this post. It has been ongoing for 5 years so it requires some background information.
A little background:
I started training p90x in 2011. I played goalie in hockey as a kid for nearly 15 years but had little other physical activity. I started going to the gym and lifting in late 2012/early 2013 not really knowing what I was doing.
I have spent countless hours researching this issue and have had an x-ray, an ultrasound, 3 physiotherapists, 2 doctors and 4 chiropractors who can’t figure this out.
In 2013, shortly after I started lifting at the gym, I had a sharp pain (stabbing) in my left hamstring just under the glute when squatting. My form was likely terrible because it was a brand new movement but I cannot confirm what it was like back then. I stopped squatting and thought I was better after a few days because I hadn’t felt any pain other than during the actual squat. I went back to squatting and felt the same thing in the same spot and stopped again. I felt the same thing when deadlifting. Rinse and repeat this many times until I stopped squatting and deadlifting entirely for about a year while still lifting though (not knowing any better).
In 2014 I finally decided to try and get this fixed because I wanted to squat and deadlift again and ultimately powerlift.
I saw several chiropractors, physiotherapists, and a few doctors. I tried acupuncture, massage, graston, art ect and nothing helped.
One of the chiropractors had me do an ultrasound on my left hamstring which showed nothing. It should be noted however that I didn’t feel as though the person doing it put the wand where I’m actually feeling the pain.
One strange thing I noticed was that when I stood on my left leg only and lean forward, it feels very tight where the pain normally is (hamstring just under the glute) until there is a loud audible pop (similar to cracking knuckles) and then it feels much looser. This never happened before the pain/injury issue started and would only happen on the left side where the persistent injury was and not the right side.
I went to all these specialists they had varying theories but nothing seemed to work until 2 years ago a sports chiro first had me do an x-ray which again showed nothing abnormal. He then told me he had a theory that the strands of the muscle where all intertwined and that we needed to load it it fix it. We started doing single leg deadlifts with med ball, lunges, Nordic curls etc and I could barely do them. After a few months I steadily progressed and could do them fine so I stopped seeing him. I still couldn’t load very heavy on squats and deadlifts however and figured I would just need to keep progressively loading past these exercises with squats and deadlifts but it never went away.
At some point, around 1 year ago, the problem spread to my right hamstring as well and is now actually worse that the left side.
Fast forward to now, I have this sharp pain at the same spot in both hamstrings and more in the right side. I don’t feel it too much in the squat unless I go very heavy for me.
I can deadlift without pain only if I round my upper back (I think to shorten my range of motion).
Oddly enough, now both sides (since the right side is hurting too) will do the “pop” thing mentioned earlier about once every hour or so.
My hamstring strength seems fine on hamstring curls and I can fully extend them straight up while laying down so they don’t seem tight.
Things that hurt the most are deadlifts off the ground and at the top of the lockout, squats only at the very last portion of the lockout and being in the position for pendlay rows.
The pain is quite intense and very sharp and sudden and goes away nearly immediately once I get out of the specific position.
I have been reading a lot about pain science and recently asked Austin/Jordan for assistance on this same thing and they recommended to rack pull for a while. I have deloaded my deadlift from reps with mid 300’s to 135 as that is the only weight I can really do with minimal pain and keeping my back straight.
I don’t want to give up on deadlifts since I want to compete eventually.
The problem is I have been lifting extremely light on deadlifts and deloaded my squats a bit as well consistently for over 2 months thinking I can get my brain to calm down on focusing so hard but I haven’t made any improvements at all. Sometimes the pain is 6/10 with 185lb deadlifts and the next week its 9/10 and I even do them.
I would be more than happy to provide any additional information you are looking for or really do anything (if there is some sort of fee for additional support to finally solve this).
This seems to be an unsolvable problem and is really taking away from my love of lifting.
Thanks so much for your time,
Adam