My running injury was not really caused by running

Nathan Handerson.

A very experienced massage therapist, Nathan works at LifeTime Fitness, in Woodstock, GA. There is nothing more to say than the fact that this man treated my chronic injury.

It was an eye-opening experience to realize that all of the physicians I visited in GA, from gynecologists, to GI and sports med docs, physical therapists, orthopedic and pain specialists could not "solve" my mysterious injury or rather, they were not interested in investigating further. The reality is that the USA medical system, despite the reputation and appreciation that receives in Europe (at least from the non-medical community), has many problems. Well, I have experienced first hand one of those. To my surprise, patients with non life-threatening symptoms that do not "fit into the boxes" or do not follow the doc's "cookbook" are treated poorly. If the doc doesn't know or cannot diagnose your issue within his/her area of expertise (i.e. "cookbook") then you are sent to another specialist or you are asked to do more exams or you are sent home with the following instructions: "stop doing what you are doing that causes the pain."

Amazing right?

I had been having a chronic abdominal pain, more like a stabbing knife bilaterally across my midline between my ribs and my pelvis; about 2in away (horizontally) from the belly button. The pain initially showed up in races, then in running intervals and at the end, every time I was running. There was a period I could not run even 100 yrds! It was debilitating. And it lasted one year and a half. All of the physicians I visited, particularly the varsity team doctors of both GaTech and Emory, were not able to help me or direct me to the right solution. How disappointing!

Nathan Handerson works a lot at cycling and running races, and in one of those I accidentally met him. I decided to drive for almost an hour from my home to Woodstock to see him once a week. It was August 2013, I had tried all known medical methods and visited all specialists that could potentially help me but it was without success. So, I decided to give him a try.

Nathan utilized a variety of his skills, from rolfing to deep tissue massage and stretching. Alas! After two months of systematic treatment I was back in the roads running! The following 2 months I was able to race a 5K! Amazing! During these months, the treatment was not easy and not fun. There were times I would cry with pain on the massage table, there were times I would feel great! Many times I would lose faith on the treatment others I would feel optimistic. Lots of ups and downs but the progress was slow and steady.

It turned out that my running injury probably did not come from running overuse. An old injury from my years of competitive cycling had resulted in weakening of my psoas muscles. While training and competing on the bike, my abdominal muscles would compensate for the psoas atrophy. The issue came up when I started putting running miles in, especially after riding the bike. While on the bike, the psoas work at a particular crunched position. Immediately after the bike and when getting on the run, the psoas are asked to start contracting and flexing. In my case, that was way too much work for them. My abdominal muscles were overworking to compensate and my psoas muscles were getting more injured. This created a postural imbalance - my pelvis and diaphragm were kind of twisted - which then resulted in a variety of scar tissues and trigger points, primarily in my abdominal area.

Nathan had to work very systematically on me, while I kept running, in order to monitor the progress of the pain. It may sound contradictory to most physical therapy procedures: keep training while being treated, but this was decided for a reason. It was hard to find out what the problem was and what exactly needed to be done. Therefore, Nathan tried a variety of methods to see who would work the best. During that period, the only way to decide which method to choose was the pain behavior. So, I had to run during the treatment. If I had stopped completely we wouldn't be able to know if the pain went away because of the treatment or because of the rest. This procedure is usually not recommended for well known injuries but in my case that was the way to go.

Nathan was the one who really listened to my problem, and really wanted to solve it. He used rolfing and deep tissue massage for myofascial release, he re-aligned my pelvis and opened-up my diaphragm. There were also lots of psoas-specific weight lifting and stretching involved, and here I am getting back into the game!