trochanteric bursitis “protocol”

I’m wondering if there is any specific training management for trochanteric bursitis in addition to, what BBM has laid out for pain management.

After years of this strange, on-and-off pain in my left hip and unable to afford to see an ortho or PT about it, I attempted to self diagnose… I know, cringe. My symptoms seem to align fairly well with trochanteric bursitis.

It’s been a frustrating and extremely slow rehab process so far. I’ve significantly lowered the weight for squats and am sticking to a 3-1-3 tempo. Causes some very mild discomfort, but sets of 6-10 are manageable. Slow, unweighted, “perfect” lunges also seem to be tolerable.

thanks for your time,
Tim

There are is no specific training management that is necessary for all people dealing with this condition. Rather, the approach should be individualized to the person’s individual situation, training goals, and provoking factors.

It sounds like you have the general idea correct in terms of modifying training to get below a more tolerable threshold. Unfortunately, the rehab process for most tendinopathies is relatively slow. If you are not making great progress, I’d check out a few resources first:

First, our list of the most common rehab mistakes people make:
Article: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/lifting-rehab-mistakes/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4AnejJRSPrGRkOsS7V2JMl?si=zL2wNNUCTaO4VCjr9xBmVQ

Those should give you some ideas as to what we would recommend next. A one-time consultation with one of our rehab clinicians would be of great value as well. Short of that, posting more detail about your training history, current programming and progression methods, provoking movements/activities, and future goals here may be useful to provide some other suggestions.

Thanks so much for your reply. Will definitely check out those resources. Oh, for some reason I didn’t realize it’s a tendinopathy. I think I recall you had a tendinopathy that lasted basically a year (can’t remember if it was related to your quad or elbow).

As far as my training history, it stretches over 10 years at this point. Lots of overdoing it early in my training history with SS, injuries and stops and starts. Started using RPE and BBM programming in earnest around 2018. The following 5 years up until now have been a stressful time and training history has been somewhat erratic with lots of fluctuations in volume and weight: a move across the country, 2 kids, Covid, death of an in-law, live-in caretaking of the other in law for about 2 years and unfortunately her passing away earlier this year. It’s been a rough time. I’ve been using the beginner template almost exclusively just because of how erratic training has been.

Progression: as per the last month or so, I’ve been trying to go for more tempo reps over time and manage the weight based on pain level. I allow a small amount of discomfort during the tempo squats. Same with unweighted lunges.

Provoking activities: running, walking upstairs (though has become a lot better after using tempo squats), any kind of squatting or lunging, sitting cross legged, laying on my left side, landing from a jump. Bicycling and walking feel ok.

My goal is to get back to loaded squatting without any or with very little pain, consistently, at full speed. Doing other activities like running or jumping pain free would be nice also

Just want to quickly add that I love my children more than anything and being a dad is a massive privilege lol. Did not mean to imply it’s been a hardship in the least bit. Just talking about it terms of training history and the effect parenting can have on that.