By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

 A few weeks ago I read a social media posting by Mike Wardian, one of the ironmen of our sport, stating he was withdrawing his participation in an important race because of piriformis syndrome. My thought was that if this can happen to the king of recovery, a runner who competes every weekend, guy who is out there achieving superhuman feats, what is there left for the rest of us? Mere mortals that are just trying to do our best with what we have.

In his Instagram post from October 18, Wardian wrote: “Pro tip: don’t get Piriformis Syndrome the day before the race you have been looking forward to for years. It is a pain in the arse & literally brought me to my knees. Unfortunately, I need to withdraw from the #bigsbackyardultra so gutted to be unable to participate”.

Because it crosses the sciatic nerve, it can become tight from too much sitting or it come become strained from overuse. The tightness or strain will cause it to compress and rub against the sciatic nerve

The piriformis muscle is a small muscle located deep in the buttock (behind the gluteus maximus). It runs behind the hip joint and aids in the external hip rotation or turning your leg outward. Because it crosses the sciatic nerve, it can become tight from too much sitting or it come become strained from overuse. The tightness or strain will cause it to compress and rub against the sciatic nerve.

According to the Spine-Health website, piriformis syndrome is a condition in which the piriformis muscle, located in the buttock region, spasms and causes buttock pain. The piriformis muscle can also irritate the nearby sciatic nerve and cause pain, numbness and tingling along the back of the leg and into the foot (similar to sciatic pain).

In his book “The Athlete’s Book of Home Remedies”, Dr. Jordan Metzl, states the pain is often felt deep inside the buttock muscles and it makes it difficult to sit on the affected buttock.

Diagnosing piriformis syndrome is not an easy task even for the most experienced doctors. According to what I have read, and I am no doctor so please don’t take medical advice from me, there is no specific test for this condition so it is usually diagnosed by eliminating alternative options to the patient’s symptoms or pain.

A home-based stretch and strengthening routine could help prevent a visit to the doctor.

According to Dr. Metzl, many of the interconnected muscles in this region—piriformis, glutes, hip flexors, hamstrings, quads—support one another, and weakness in one area can mess up the works. If you face an unexplained soreness in the deep buttock area, and if the home-based care doesn’t improve your symptoms in a week, or sooner if the pain is severe, he recommends you see a doctor.

My point with this post is that this is an extremely painful condition that can easily sideline you. I have experienced it on a very mild level, and I do not want to know how much worse it can get. If it can bring a badass like Mike Wardian to his knees, it must be a horrible condition.  I overcame it very quickly with home stretching and strength exercises. If you are diligent in doing these as soon as you feel a, putting it plainly, deep pain in the ass, you may be able to avoid pain and lost time.

While researching for this blogpost, I found the following video. It is about 6 minutes long and it talks about the differences between piriformis syndrome and sciatica, which need to be treated differently. I found it worth my time.

I also found the following video of five sciatica stretches for piriformis syndrome, which I found interesting, especially because they can be done anywhere and with no specific equipment.

I sincerely hope you never have to use the information in this blog post, but if you ever do need it, I hope you will be able to recognize the issue in its early stages so you are not brought to your knees and you don’t miss any miles.