Would bikram YOGA help groin pain + hip tightness ?

[stayghost]

After a long layoff I had come back to stand-up training about 6 months ago and noticed some flexibility issues with my hips / groin. This was most noticeable in kicking exercises. I started doing some core strengthening exercises on off days and a bit of stretching before training to try and help it. I was training 2x per week for a couple hours per. (4hrs per week)

About a month ago I returned to BJJ after healing some injuries, increasing my training frequency to 4x per week a couple hours per (7-8hrs per week).

About 2 weeks ago I really stepped up my training in an effort to prepare myself to get more serious and work towards my first amateur bout, training 6 days per week a couple hours per (12hrs per week). Doing a mix of boxing, MT, BJJ, mitts, and I also added dedicated wrestling classes which is brand new to me and kicked my ass.

Over the past weekend I noticed some significant groin soreness. I'm reluctant to call it a strain so maybe stretched? I feel it on both inner thighs but my right one much more so. It's only during certain motions like getting in and out of the car or pivoting hard on kicks. It's a sharp pain and makes me noticeably wince on my right. On the left I can feel it but much more subtle and not as sharp.

Anyway, the fact that I feel it on both inner thighs (though one much more than the other) as well as some hip tightness .... I was wondering if it is a general flexability issue or tendinitis? I wonder if trying bikram YOGA would be worthwhile to try and help it??? Of course, I'm not sure if this will help my issues or make them even worse.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

 

[Senor Jose]

are u a guy or a girl?

 

[grrthetree]

Rest would be a good starting point.

 

[stayghost]

are u a guy or a girl?

30yr old guy

 

[Baconator69**]

Its good man, there are TONS of hot chicks half naked. I go about twice amonth.

There are also really creepy guys who should NOT be shirtless wearing spandex biker shorts.

It will help your hips too

 

[J Storm**]

bikram is so gross. if you want to try yoga, try the versions that don't heat up the room to 110 degrees.

 

[yocan]

what do you do to warm down after working out? Marsoc short card I do after I run to loosen up, your workout obviously includes your upper body. But some things to do at the end of your workout 30 dollies (hold your feet 6 inches off the ground, swing your legs out wide, bring back together), 30 high knee lunges where you are walking through, try to go so far forward that if your front leg's shin is vertical you can't get your back knee to the floor. By the end of 30 I get that stretched out. Every step I get a little further.

10 "windmills" feet shoulder width touch one then the other with yoru arms straight to your sides.

10 cherry pickers (nice gentle bounding, where you touch outside of your toe, then outside the middle of your foot, then reach as far behind it as you can)


Yoga helped me a lot, I just did P90x video and called it good. couldn't get myself to a club. but those things I just said wouldn't be bad to incorporate into your warm down from your workouts.

 

[miaou]

Why don't you just start working on your flexibility and mobility instead? You can get together a program that addresses your specific issues instead of a generic group yoga class.

Also, is that "bit of stretching before training" static or dynamic?

And btw, if it hurts, don't keep pushing through the pain.

 

[JauntyAngle]

If you have an injury, rest is the cure, not stretching.

That being said, yoga will generally help with any flexibility issues. It is a very complete and technically demanding form of stretching. I would look into Ayengar yoga rather than bikram, but in general any good teacher will do the trick.

 

[Bedlam]

Small note: if you've injured a ligament or tendon, stretching it will make it worse.

Also I looked up this bikram yoga thing, and I... I'm not sure what to make of it.

 

[oyaji poi]

are u a guy or a girl?

This isn't a dating site, though you're probably happy to hear it was a guy.



To the TS, I checked out a lot of videos and instructionals for yoga. After a bit I realized most of it was the same moves, just with different sequences or "themes". There is no mystical correlation between moves, but that seems to be the main way they go about product differentiation.

The best video I found was actually from BJJ black belt Stephan Kesting. There is no lame philosophy or talk about, I dunno, the sun warming your soul or some shit. I found that most yoga instructional tapes are big on new-age hippy banter, and light on instructions. The good thing about the Kesting yoga DVD is they give a running commentary and what you should be doing.

This is incredibly important because it's hard to stretch and watch a DVD at the same time. I don't know why, but literally 99% of the Western yoga teachers cannot resist talking about "flowing with the wind and sunshine and you move your body" in an instructional, instead of....giving instructions.

The DVD takes you through the sun salutation, then some groin and hip stretches, and some upper body stuff.

After getting used to the routines and becoming familiar with the stretches I just do the sun salutation, then a few hip and groin stretches, then finish up with some overhead squats. I think it's quite important to use your flexibility immediately after stretching, especially to do the movement you are trying to get flexible for. Practice makes perfect.

Sun Salutation: http://www.audioyoga.com/Routines/SunSalutations/SunSal-Full.pdf

 

[JauntyAngle]

To the TS, I checked out a lot of videos and instructionals for yoga. After a bit I realized most of it was the same moves, just with different sequences or "themes". There is no mystical correlation between moves, but that seems to be the main way they go about product differentiation.

That's not a bad way to go, but it is hard to learn everything from those videos. Just like watching people doing the big lifts on YouTube, a lot of the time they're doing them wrong and a lot of the time they are not explaining them that well. Things like, in the standing forward bend, are your palms flat on the floor with the weight evenly distributed? Are you bringing your shoulderblades together as you come down? Is your spine straight? Are you pulling up your thigh muscles? Is your core engaged? Are your toes spread? Those are the little details for just one of hundreds of positions.

I have found that this is the kind of information that is hard to get from videos. And while you get a lot of benefit from just doing the stretch, you get even more with the details.

Props for working sun salutations into your routine though. If I could only do one exercise, it would be those.

 

[oyaji poi]

That's not a bad way to go, but it is hard to learn everything from those videos. Just like watching people doing the big lifts on YouTube, a lot of the time they're doing them wrong and a lot of the time they are not explaining them that well. Things like, in the standing forward bend, are your palms flat on the floor with the weight evenly distributed? Are you bringing your shoulderblades together as you come down? Is your spine straight? Are you pulling up your thigh muscles? Is your core engaged? Are your toes spread? Those are the little details for just one of hundreds of positions.

I have found that this is the kind of information that is hard to get from videos. And while you get a lot of benefit from just doing the stretch, you get even more with the details.

Props for working sun salutations into your routine though. If I could only do one exercise, it would be those.

I can't believe I'm going to promote this guy, but the Tacfit Commando package from Scott Sonnon has a flexibility and joint mobility component. Much like the DVD from Kesting, it is marketed towards a male audience, many of whom are involved with martial arts. Sonnon's instructions are clear and he addresses many of the points you mentioned. In his Tacfit Commando product the flexibility/mobility stuff are used as a warmup and cool down, and he gives pointers the entire time.

So between the running commentary from Sonnon in Tacfit, and the details from Kesting's DVD, I think most people can learn a lot.

Of course, you never know what you don't know, but for a few bucks you can get a great couple of DVDs from those two. And so far, for me anyway, I have greatly improved my mobility and flexibility for grappling and lifting.

 

[MASShole]

My wife is a yoga teacher. giggity.

TS: rest, targeted mobility and flexibility help.

 

[JauntyAngle]

So between the running commentary from Sonnon in Tacfit, and the details from Kesting's DVD, I think most people can learn a lot.

Of course, you never know what you don't know, but for a few bucks you can get a great couple of DVDs from those two. And so far, for me anyway, I have greatly improved my mobility and flexibility for grappling and lifting.

I guess if you are improving then that is cool, and I certainly don't think that yoga has a monopoly on knowledge of correct stretching technique. I guess the main thing is to recognize that there is a lot you don't know, and try to work on reducing it. Since you're doing it, then hats off to you.

 

[miaou]

My wife is a yoga teacher. giggity.

TS: rest, targeted mobility and flexibility help.

A good friend of mine recently got certified as a yoga teacher. Her anatomy and physiology knowledge is limited to what she was taught in the yoga instructor program, and, from what I can tell, what she was taught was extremely limited to begin with. She did pay a good amount of money for that certification though.

For instance, she was taught that if a client has knee pain they need to externally rotate their hips. My friend had knee issues herself, and following that advice seemed to help her, which of course solidified her opinion about yoga being teh awesome. Now, I did my best to explain to her that things are never really that simple, and that she would need a bit more info than just "my knees hurt" to decide that externally rotating the hips is the answer; that sometimes doing that isn't nearly enough to help and some other times doing that can actually worsen your condition. Her response was something like "you think you know everything, but maybe you should try this yourself", and, needless to say, I soon gave up.