Top 3 Self Treatments To Do To Start Fixing Piriformis Syndrome

In this video, I’m going to show you the top three self-treatments that you can do at home to treat your piriformis syndrome. My name is Dr. David Middaugh Finn, I’m a specialist physical therapist at El Paso manual physical therapy. And this channel is dedicated to helping people stay healthy, active and mobile, while avoiding unnecessary surgery, injections and pain medications. Please consider subscribing to this channel so that you don’t miss out on any of the helpful videos we post every week.

Hey, before we get into the treatments, I’m going to show you three things that really helped to calm down that piriformis I just want to let you know that I made another video that goes deep into why piriformis syndrome happens, what the causes are and how it’s really a secondary problem more like a sign and symptom of some deeper problem.

That videos linked in the description below. It’s called piriformis syndrome, everything that you need to know about it to get better, go check that video out if you want to learn the details behind piriformis syndrome.

So now that that’s out of the way, let me show you what to do on the table here so that you can get some relief from the piriformis syndrome right now, the first thing you want to start out with is a massage of some sorts, chances are if you’ve got piriformis syndrome, you’ve got a tight little muscle back there, that piriformis muscle runs from the tailbone area out to the side of the hip.

So it spans this distance from between my fingers right there. So right in the glute, that’s where you need to massage that muscle. And you can do this a few different ways, the easiest way to do it is to just use your fingers and get back in there can use your knuckles as well. But I recommend starting out with your fingers. And it would look simply just like this, you just reach in and feel around in the muscle and find where it’s stiffest and then you just gently dig in.

So I’m just kind of doing this kind of motion, I am wiggling my fingers, kind of combing them in just a bit just like this. As I’m moving my whole arm, almost like you’re scratching yourself, but you’re digging in the tissue. To move the tissue just like this, I’m moving my skin. But I’m not sliding my hand over my skin, I’m grabbing the skin and moving the tissues under it just in that spot.

Once you find a deep muscle that’s kind of hard and tender, then you would gently want to just work your way all the way through it. Now, if you’re having trouble getting in there with your fingers, you want to use a tool, I’ve got a few things that I can show you here. So I like using these massage balls. And I’ve linked these in the description below in case you want to get some we got this pokey one in here, not going to use that one right now I’m going to use this black one.

Now this is a pretty stiff ball. And just to show you what else is in here, these are two that are connected together. We you could use this, but I prefer this because you can get a lot more mobility, emotion out of this, the way that you would use this to massage your piriformis. And you just have to be careful because you’re going to put a lot of body pressure on this potentially in it can be painful, when you massage your piriformis.

You don’t want to be aggressive to give you a number rating system just so that you know what intensity to use, on a scale of zero to 10 zero, meaning it doesn’t feel like anything’s happening at all, and 10. Meaning I’m about to cry, because it’s so painful, you want to be at like a two or three, you don’t need to be very intense at all, if you just give it its due diligence, a couple of minutes is all you need at a two or three intensity, that muscles start to melt down and it’ll free up it won’t be so hard. And to give you some relief.

So what you would do is sit on this thing. So let’s say it’s my right side affecting me, I would just put that on my chair, you could get on the floor if you wanted to. And you need some hand supports, this does take some strength, and you just get over it and find the spot that’s a little tender. And then you just rub your bottom over that area, just remember not to be too aggressive. So let me just show you.

From this angle here. There’s the ball. And I’m just putting my bottom on it right where the piriformis is. And you don’t have to be 100% certain that you’re on the piriformis. It’s unless you’re in the medical field. And even if you are in the medical field, it’s still kind of hard to tell that you’re on the right spot. Just find a tender spot and rub on it. I need to warn you though, the piriformis is right by the sciatic nerve.

So if you’re rubbing this ball back there and you feel something shooting down your leg or up into your back, you’re probably rubbing the nerve and that’s not a good idea you’re going to aggressively and you need to back off a little bit. Even if you think you’re at a two or three out of 10. Like I said, back down to a one. And if you’re still getting that shooting down the leg down the back of your thigh back of the knee, maybe all the way down into your ankle or foot then this may not be for you right now.

You might have some sciatica that’s flaring up and this is going to potentially make it worse. So this treatment right now that I’m talking about is just for flared up piriformis muscle. And another option that you have aside from one of these balls is a percussion massage gun. Let me show you mine here.

I got the two local one here, this is been my my favorite one currently, I’ve got it linked in the description below if you want to get one of these, you can find it on Amazon, I think they only offer these on Amazon I love this one for the power the weights, all the features of it, I’ve got a review video about it, you can go check it out if you want. But you would power this thing on.

And I just had the ball the softer ball, it’s got a bunch of other ones, I’ll show you how to use that here in a second. But I would just put that, right where you feel that Tinder muscle and go to town. And again, zero to 10 scale to stick at about a two or three, you don’t need to be very aggressive at all. And just hanging out there in those spots. If you have that sciatic nerve problem, the pain going down the leg, then you don’t want to be doing this again, because vibration is known to aggravate nerve problems.

So you want to be gentle and just be monitoring that nothing else is happening besides the muscle freeing up. And you would do this for just a minute or two, whether using the gun, this percussion massage gun, or you’re going to be using the massage ball or massaging with your own hand. Usually about a minute or two is enough. Now because there’s a lot of muscle back there, you might use the adapter that’s more pinpointed. And this one comes with two different ones.

This one’s more like a thumb shape. So it’s kind of like your thumb going back like that. And this one’s more like, you know, just without the curvature on it, I found both of them to be about the same, turn it on.

But just to show you what that looks like. So there’s the pinpointed adapter, turn it on. And again, be gentle with this. And just want to put it right on that spot. And this one does just dig in a bit more specific to the muscle. And it’s because the piriformis muscles kind of small, this targets it a bit better in my opinion.

Now after you freed up the piriformis muscle for a couple of minutes, you can go longer if you want but usually get diminishing returns after a couple of minutes. Next, you want to go into a stretch. Now when I say a stretch, I don’t recommend stretches very often at all to any of my clients or anywhere on this channel, you could dig high and low there’s probably just a few times I’ve mentioned stretching to be a good thing.

But the way that I’m going to show you this stretch is a very strategic piriformis stretch. So pay close attention and make sure that you’re doing this right so that you don’t aggravate your piriformis problem as well as something else like a sciatica problem for this piriformis stretch, you’re going to have to lie down in your back, I’m just going to put away my massage going in here. And I’ll lie down on the table so you can see what I’m doing.

Now, a common piriformis stretch is like this, where you cross your leg over on your back this foot this legs bent foot flat, and then you put your ankle on your other knee. And when you push down like this, it can provide a stretch here, you can pull across this way, we’re going to focus on stretching the piriformis muscles.

So that means I’m going to have to move my knee across this way. But I’m going to do it very carefully. Because just pinning my ankle down right here, it already gives me a lot of leverage. So I’m going to just put my hands right here and gently pull it over across my body. This is passive. So in other words, I’m not using any muscles in my leg here, I’m just controlling the motion with my hands.

And once you get to about a two or three intensity of stretch, so zero to 10, same scale that we use before, once you get to a two or three. So for me about right there, then what you’re going to do very, very lightly, is push your knee into your hands. So as if I’m pushing that way, and you’re going to hold it for 10 seconds, so stretch gets about a two or three.

Now I’m going to push my knees in my hand, and it shouldn’t be aggressive, it should be pretty light, what you want to feel is just this muscle back here engage very lightly. And then after about 10 seconds or so let it go. And see if we can go any further. Still staying in about a two or three on that on that zero to 10 scale. And if you get a little bit more stretch Graham stays the same, that’s fine, too.

You’re not shooting for more motion necessarily. You’re trying to get this muscle to relax. That’s the goal. So make sure that you’re not that’s why I don’t like to call this a stretch even because you’re not trying to gain more motion that that’s not the point here. The point is to calm down your piriformis. So after you stretch a little bit more, you can hang out there for about 2030 seconds and then you’re going to repeat that process three times.

You’re going to push that knee out against your hands. You’re trying to resist and not let it move but if it moves a bit, that’s okay. Hold it for about 10 seconds. Make sure the muscle back here is gently activating not aggravating anything. And after 10 seconds, let it go and see if you can go any further. If you can’t, that’s okay, if you can go a little further, no intense stretching, and no intense muscle activation. I’m going to do one more time. When I push my knee outwards here, get this to work. This is called the muscle energy technique.

By the way, if you look it up in, you know, for medical purposes, medical terms, after you contract here for about 10 seconds and let it go. And you can stretch one more final time, before you relax, that should allow that muscle to give up some freedom to stop spasming. And the best way, in my opinion, to use that strategic stretch or that muscle energy technique is to go back and forth with your massage. So the first treatment thing that I said, you know, getting in there with your fingers massaging or using the ball or the massage gun, if you go through the massage for just a couple of minutes, get that muscle to soften up of it, then come back and do this stretch of this muscle energy technique.

And you can repeat that process until you’ve calmed down your piriformis muscle as much as it’s going to come down right now. Then you can repeat the same thing later on in the day in a few hours, or tomorrow. And you should be able to continue doing this for as long as it takes usually a few days to get your piriformis to calm down.

Now once you feel like it’s calmed down enough for you to use the muscle a bit more aggressively, then you would go into this next third treatment option that I’m going to give you and it’s a glute activation, you want to begin to fire your glute muscles because the piriformis is technically one of the glute muscles, but there’s a bunch of other glute muscles in there. And piriformis should not be the main one firing, there’s bigger muscles that are way more important to fire.

So what we’re trying to do next is get them all to fire appropriately without the piriformis dominating and wanting to spasm again. So to do this exercise, you’re going to lay down on your back again, similar to how you were a second ago. And then you’re going to pull your knee towards your chest, you might get a little stretch in there, that’s okay, that’s not the point or anything related to it.

Then what you’re going to do to get your glute to activate, you’re going to do a 10 second hold, you’re going to push your knee away from your body, but you’re going to resist with your hands. So keep your hands here, you might just bend your elbows a bit to pull your knee in, then you’re pushing your knee away.

And on a scale of zero to 10 intensity two or three again, doesn’t need to be very active at all, what you should feel is the glutes tightening up lightly, nothing aggressive, it should just engage a bit in there and the glutes, hold it for 10 seconds and you can relax, let your leg fall in the direction that it wants to go. Just keep your hands there so that you’d like doesn’t flop down and repeat this three times.

So I’m going to do two more times here, I’m going to get my flute going. And I feel the the muscle there engage lightly two or three intensity. And after about 10 seconds or so relax again. And you shouldn’t feel anything spasming. It shouldn’t hurt your piriformis it should just feel like the muscle worked a bit and then once you relax like it, it relax and gave up. So one more time when a pull my knee up just a bit and push my knee away activating my glutes. Hold it for about 10 seconds or so.

And your other group might want to activate too. So I’m using my right leg right here. My left glute is tightening up too. That’s fine. That’s okay. After 10 seconds, relax, and you’re good. Now you’ve activated your glute muscles all together the way they’re supposed to fire without your piriformis dominating. Now these three exercises are just meant to give you some short-term relief from your piriformis syndrome.

To get long term relief from piriformis syndrome, there’s usually a deeper root problem that needs to be addressed. Usually, a sciatica problem or an SI joint the sacroiliac joint problem. I go into detail on SI joint problems and sciatica problems on other videos on our channel. So I want to just point your attention to the videos in the description below.

We’ve got some links that are links to playlists for SI joint problems and sciatica problems. So go check those out. If you think you have more of a sciatica problem or an SI joint problem, you’ll be able to get more specific help to get the long-term relief because your piriformis syndrome is usually just a symptom of one of those other problems.

Hey, if you thought this video was helpful for you, please give us a thumbs up share this with somebody that you think needs this somebody who’s suffering from piriformis syndrome. It needs some relief, some natural relief, and I hope to see you in the next video. Bye friends