A cause of ishial pain?

How many of us treat runners on a regular basis? Most of us I would say. While lecturing, I had an epiphany about recalcitrant hamstring insertional pain, that does seem to respond to conventional therapy. Take a look at the trigger point referral pattern for the semimembranosis/ semitendonosis. Note that in closed chain, these are external rotators of the thigh. Thinking about this, they would eccentrically contract (theoretically) to decelerate internal rotation of the thigh (such as with excessive midfoot pronation at initial contact and loading response.

Now look at when these guys fire during running gait. The left side of the graph (up to TO)  represents the stance phase of running gait (Mann 1986). The right side represents swing (or float) phase. Note that the medial hamstrings should fire from about foot descent to mid support (or midstance), with a little blast after the foot leaves the ground (asumed eccentrically) to assist in slowing the leg.

Now think about if the foot is a poor lever and remains on the ground just a little longer and rotates medially a little too far (overpronation); this muscle could conceivably be over worked and result in the trigger point referral pattern seen above on the ishial tuberosity.

Ah, but how to fix it? 

We could dry needle it and rehab it (better train it eccentrically, since that is how it is working), but it is already overworked, and in my cllinical experience, only provides temporary relief of the symptom. What other muscles seen in the chart could help? Hmmm… Take a look at the tibialis anterior (dorsiflexor/inverter), gastroc (medial) (plantarflexor/inverter), foot intrinsics and glute max/ posterior fibers of the glute medius. All external rotators (save for the foot intrinsics, which should fire from midstance to toe off) and a bonus pronatory decelerator for the tibialis anterior and able to slow an excessively internally rotating lower leg. You better check and make sure they are all on line before just treating the area of the chief complaint!

The Gait Guys. Keeping it real and giving you the tools to do a better job at what we all love to do : ) .

Gait / Running Injury: Misdiagnosed Big Toe Extensor Hallucis Brevis tear in a distance runner from a simple ankle sprain.

* Sorry for the less than perfect video. Need some editing time.  Watch from 0:32 onwards for the topic at hand.

This young man, State caliber cross country runner, came in to see us after some unsuccessful treatment for an inversion ankle sprain several weeks prior. Although his swelling and range of motion had improved he was still having pain despite treatment.

On examination it was revealed that there was no loss of integrity of the lateral ligamentous restraints, no joint gapping was noted and the ligaments were non-tender. There was no swelling. Balance was clean. Even the immediate local lateral ankle muscular restraints, largely peronei, were competent with skill, endurance and strength assessment.

After further pointed discussion, after the ankle was cleared as a causative /symptomatic generator, we insisted the patient be more specific with his pain region. After requesting he palpate around to focalize the area of complaint this time he pointed not to his lateral ankle but rather pointed to the lateral dorsum of the foot over the fleshy mass of the short extensor muscle group just distal and anterior to the lateral malleolus. Inversion of the ankle was pain free but inversion of the forefoot on the rearfoot reproduced his pain pin point to the EHB (extensor hallucis origin area).

Upon reassessing his gait it was now obvious that he was unable to engage the left hallux (big toe) extensors. You can clearly see his lack of toe extension (lift) on the video at 0:32 seconds. When consciously requested to do so it immediately reproduced his pain ! If you look very carefully, that the hallux was not extending during swing phase through midstance contact phases of gait.

After specific muscle testing found only the EHB (extensor hallucis brevis) weak and not the EDB at all (extensor digitorum brevis) we began a few minutes of manual therapy to the EHB. Within ~5 -10 minutes the EHB was painfree and he could engage the muscle again actively. The muscle was clearly healed from it low grade strain, he was just unable to reactivate it during the gait cycle. Post treatment, he was able to walk immediately with much less pain and with ability to use the EHB in gait.

We followed up a second visit with him but he was pain free and was discharged from care. There were no gait compensations and screens for functional sensory motor compensations were unremarkable. Case closed.

Good results come from a precision diagnosis which can only come from a sound base of knowledge of anatomy, physiology and biomechanics …. when it comes to this kinda stuff.  Would you have picked this up on someone’s gait ? We didn’t at first.  Use your clinical examination to drive your suspicions in your gait analysis. What you see is not always what you get during gait analysis, this easily could have been a similar presentation of a hallux limitus.

Details, details, details. The devil is in the details, The proof is in the pudding……. etc.

Shawn & Ivo