I hurt or tore my glute doing axe kick.

[Intercept]

I'm new to this site and wonderd if I could get any advice on an injury. I'm in my 40's and love Taekwondo and received my 1st Dan Black Belt 8 months ago. I have really high kicks but my right leg will not go as high as my left during axe or high leg stretch kicks. I stretch, can touch my toes but the one muscle group I just can't seem to get loose is my hamstrings. I tried everything in the book. I was getting high decent axe kicks though but it's my hardest to pull off. My left side is pretty high and good. I have really great progress i. My splits, have really high fast roundhouse, side and front kicks. Anyway, one class I really tried to put up my high leg stretch higher. I really made that extra effort to get it as high as I could go and i pulled or tore something because it's burned and hurt since. Its been like 7 weeks and it still burns. It my right deep inside glute. I can't use it to kick higher than belt high now. If I force it I'll mess it up even more. Any advice? Right now I'm just not using it during class. I'm trying to really let it heal. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[drop bear]

It will take a while. Go see a doctor

 

[TrueJim]

Age 55 here...as we get up there in years, pulled muscles take a LOT longer to heal. Believe it or not, once we reach middle-age, 7 weeks may not be enough time for a pull to fully heal. (Oh for the Wolverine-like quick-healing of our youths!) Anyway, it sounds to me like you're doing the right thing...don't stress it, let it heal, and meanwhile eat plenty of lean protein. It might take months.

 

[Texas TKD Lady]

Be careful with this. Listen to your body, back off when you're feeling pain, and when in doubt see a doctor. I am 36 and just got my first dan black belt last month. Earlier in the summer I started experiencing severe pain in my glute and upper hamstring. I did a lot of ice packs and pain relievers, but I wasn't getting better. I also had some hip problems, but I've had that for years. I was diagnosed with high hamstring tendonosis, which is often seen in runners.

I laid off really fast movements like sparring for a while (I love using axe kicks during fighting, but that led to a lot of pain afterwards) and started seeing a physical therapist. There was no way I was going to stop training completely since I was testing for black belt in October, so my PT developed a program that would build me up for the test. Five months and many strengthening exercises later and I feel great.

 

[WaterGal]

See a physical therapist. They'll give you exercises and stretches and things you can do to strengthen that area and relax tightness that might be contributing to the pain.

 

[Intercept]

Thanks for all of your very helpful imformation! I made an appointment with a physical therapist and have been doing the excersize where you lay down on a hard ball under your glute. It really makes it feel better after. I'll check back in and keep people posted. Thanks again!

 

[RTKDCMB]

Injuries are a pain in the bum, sometimes literally. You may be in for a long recovery. I did my right hamstring only slightly about 6 months ago demonstrating a jumping front kick. A few months went by and it seemed to be fully healed until it went on me half way through a sprint about a month ago. I had trouble walking for a few days and I could not lift my leg in front higher than my knee. I saw a doctor about it and he said that I should keep exercising lightly to keep moving so it does dot seize up. So far I have had the pleasure of discovering what hurts it the most.

Jumping
Spinning on my right leg
Skipping side kick for distance
Driving my car

If I were to give advice I would say continue with gentle exercise, take things slowly until you feel your injury is healed and give a few extra weeks before getting back into things fully.

 

[Intercept]

Injuries are a pain in the bum, sometimes literally. You may be in for a long recovery. I did my right hamstring only slightly about 6 months ago demonstrating a jumping front kick. A few months went by and it seemed to be fully healed until it went on me half way through a sprint about a month ago. I had trouble walking for a few days and I could not lift my leg in front higher than my knee. I saw a doctor about it and he said that I should keep exercising lightly to keep moving so it does dot seize up. So far I have had the pleasure of discovering what hurts it the most.

Jumping
Spinning on my right leg
Skipping side kick for distance
Driving my car

If I were to give advice I would say continue with gentle exercise, take things slowly until you feel your injury is healed and give a few extra weeks before getting back into things fully.

Thank you for your advice. Yesterday my Master showed me a few stretches for that muscle group and had me lightly go through them. I was actually able to do them. Later in class we began doing paddle target kicking drills and it went really good. Luckily we didn't do axe kicks. So yes, taking it easy but move those sore muscles. Tonights class went really good too. I'll keep checking in and letting everyone know updates.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

My personal experience has been that doctor's are not helpful, since they tell you the obvious that it is injured and to let it heal. Physiotherapy can help, but I found the benefit to be moderate and the cost to be high for the time spent.

My best experience has been with Registered Massage Therapy, with an RMT who gets deep into the muscle and works on athletic injuries. If the RMT's focus is on relaxing massage, that's not the guy for you!

Out of the 3 categories of professionals that I saw - doctors, physiotherapist, and RMT - the RMT was the only one who actually felt the injury and treated from there. After the fact, it seemed obvious to me to feel the muscle tissue as part of the diagnosis, but the doctor and physiotherapist just prescribed based on my words.

The concern you should have IMO is not that your injury heals quickly, but that it heals well without adhesions. If muscle fibres heal together and stick together, you won't be 100% flexible.

My advice is to do some RMT to help the healing be as complete as possible.

 

[WaterGal]

I agree that a regular doctor isn't going to help much. An orthopedist or sports medicine doctor will be more helpful. They'll probably say to try PT for a while, and if that doesn't help, they'll probably do an MRI to see if there's anything more serious going on than a pulled muscle. Maybe you give you some painkillers, and refer you to surgery if you need that.

 

[Intercept]

I thought I would check in. My hip/glute feels amazingly better. At my Taekwondo Dojang we have a Master there (not our Sabumnim of the school) who also is a doctor and she recomended maybe I get a Cortisone shot right in the area and to listen to my body. No high kicks, no hard stretches on that leg etc. the doctor thinks I may have trochanteric bursitus. Or a combination of things including sitting all day at my job and perhaps not stretching good emough and kicking cold. If it comes back he wants to scan and x ray the area. I'm going to go to the pysical therapist at Kaiser. It's free and i just want tomgo to learn som good effextive stretches for that area of my leg. So far the pain has gone completely so I will continue to be pretty easy on it. My last 3 classes before the Christmas break i was able to throw kicks, i just stayed totally away from axe and high leg stretch kicks. Thanks you guys for all your advice and insight. This site is pretty cool. There's also the Taekwondo Forums site but it seems to go idle for long periods but worth checking out. Thanks again!!