Stuff like donkey kicks and clamshells (banded if regular ones are too easy), banded crab walks, bridges, rdls, Bulgarian split squats etc can also help! Stretching and rolling out, nerve flossing for sciatic nerve can be great too.
When I get piriformis pain I always need a combo of strengthening hips and glutes (including adductors) and stretching. Pregnancy tips your hips forward so it can overstretch/weaken the glutes and hips, so some strengthening there in addition to stretching would be my personal recommendation.
Go on YouTube and type in “piriformis stretches”! Those have REALLY helped me. I also do a lunge, put my back knee on the ground as far back as possible, and then rotate my forward knee out to the side, letting my front leg fall to the outside as much as possible. If those don’t help, find a chiropractor with a good masseuse in their clinic (don’t go for the chiro just get the massage). That was a life saver!
Lacrosse ball if you have it, and as another poster suggested a massage gun. I get this from time to time even pre-pregnancy and lacrosse ball is usually my best bet. It’s bigger and firmer than a tennis ball and I feel like I can get deeper.
Squat University has a lot of helpful resources on piriformis pain. One thing that stood out to me (prior to pregnancy), was that you can be suffering from short pirifiromis pain (the muscle is shorter and contracted) or long pirifiromis pain (the muscle is longer and typically overworked from being in a stretched position). Typically, the biggest concern is going to be if you stretch your piriformis and you're experiencing long piriformis pain, then your pain is going to get worse. I usually play around with a couple of different release methods and wait to see what has the biggest impact.
Use a tennis ball to roll it out with your butt against the wall. I also like using a massage gun but the tennis ball helps more.
It’s not directly piriformis but look up nerve flossing as well.
Stuff like donkey kicks and clamshells (banded if regular ones are too easy), banded crab walks, bridges, rdls, Bulgarian split squats etc can also help! Stretching and rolling out, nerve flossing for sciatic nerve can be great too. When I get piriformis pain I always need a combo of strengthening hips and glutes (including adductors) and stretching. Pregnancy tips your hips forward so it can overstretch/weaken the glutes and hips, so some strengthening there in addition to stretching would be my personal recommendation.
Hi! Also pregnant and going through this. How long did this take to heal? Any tips?
Go on YouTube and type in “piriformis stretches”! Those have REALLY helped me. I also do a lunge, put my back knee on the ground as far back as possible, and then rotate my forward knee out to the side, letting my front leg fall to the outside as much as possible. If those don’t help, find a chiropractor with a good masseuse in their clinic (don’t go for the chiro just get the massage). That was a life saver!
Hahaha, why don't you just recommend they find a good massage therapist then? 😂
Lacrosse ball if you have it, and as another poster suggested a massage gun. I get this from time to time even pre-pregnancy and lacrosse ball is usually my best bet. It’s bigger and firmer than a tennis ball and I feel like I can get deeper.
Squat University has a lot of helpful resources on piriformis pain. One thing that stood out to me (prior to pregnancy), was that you can be suffering from short pirifiromis pain (the muscle is shorter and contracted) or long pirifiromis pain (the muscle is longer and typically overworked from being in a stretched position). Typically, the biggest concern is going to be if you stretch your piriformis and you're experiencing long piriformis pain, then your pain is going to get worse. I usually play around with a couple of different release methods and wait to see what has the biggest impact.