If you’ve ever experienced the discomfort of buttock and thigh pain during long drives, this is your ultimate guide to finding relief. We understand the frustration and distraction that such pain can cause.
Burning in your buttock and aching into your thigh and leg can make your drive miserable. The lingering pain can last for along time afterward and really bring a vacation down.
Sitting in one position for a long time (like when you’re driving) can irritate the muscles and nerves in your low back and buttocks. Your breathing pattern can also become affected, causing more tension in your low back muscles.
All of this tension in the low back can cause your low back, butt, and thighs to have a deep ache. This is why those long vacation drives can become so painful.
The good news is, we have a solution for you. By harnessing the power of targeted exercises, you can reclaim your drive and vacation without buttock and thigh pain again.
Seated Diaphragmatic Breathing
When driving for long periods of time, our low back and trunk muscles stiffen up and stop working effectively. This causes the muscles to hold themselves tight and get fatigued. Normally these muscles would be turning on and off. In addition, the increased tension causes your breathing patterns to be disrupted which makes the muscles get tighter still.
Diaphragmatic breathing while on long drives can help to prevent some of this tension. To practice this, put one hand on your belly and one on your side. Breath in through your nose. Try to feel your belly, sides and low back fill up with air as you breathe in. You should feel both sides of your low back push into your seat.
Now pause for 1 second, then blow out through your mouth slowly and steadily until you exhaled all the air out. You should feel your abs tighten slightly and ribs compress as you do this.
Practice for 5 minutes every 30 minutes as you drive. This will help to avoid the chronic muscle tension that comes with sitting as you drive.
Tall Sitting
In the video above, this patient’s low back is very rounded out, putting a lot of pressure on the low back. If you have buttock and thigh pain, you usually want to avoid this.
Tall sitting keeps you out of a flexed low back, decreases the pressure on the low back that can cause buttock and thigh pain.
To do this correctly, just try to think about sitting tall. You don’t want to let you lower back dump backward.
If your driving for several hours, you can use a rolled up towel placed between the lowest part of your back and your chair to help you. Combine this with diaphragmatic breathing to create a super power to protect you from buttock and thigh pain when you drive!
Tall Kneeling Trunk Rotation
This exercise is great for to get your body moving again after driving. You can do this in kneeling or standing.
Push your hips as far forward as you can. Keep your hips forward and turn only your shoulder. This will turn your butt and low back muscles on and get them working properly again.
Push your elbows back to open your chest as much as you can. This will stretch your pecs and turn on your shoulder blade muscles.
Turn as far as you can on each repetition. Hold for 5 to 10 seconds at the end of each turn. Do 2 sets of 10 to each side.
If you’ve tried these and you’re still hurting, we can help you!
At Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine in Alexandria and Springfield, VA, our physical therapists are experts at treating buttock and thigh pain and will develop a plan to help you stop it.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to request an appointment.
A member of our team will schedule you an appointment with one of our expert physical therapists.
What happens if you don’t have a plan to drive without buttock and thigh pain?
- Your family vacation drive takes extra long because you have to keep stopping to rest your back
- You spend your vacation in pain because your buttock and thigh hurt from driving
- You’re still in pain when vacation is over, making you more likely to get other diseases and injuries
But WITH a plan to drive without buttock and thigh pain you can live the life you want again.
The exercises above are a great way to get started. They don’t require a ton of time and are pretty easy to do correctly. They can help you get moving and living an active life again.
But if you want an expert to listen to your unique problems and guide you to success, a Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine physical therapist in Alexandria or Springfield, VA will create a plan specifically for you.
You’ll feel confident that you have the knowledge and ability to drive without buttock and thigh pain and do all the things you want.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to schedule your appointment and start your path to healing.
Working to keep you living your best life,
The Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine Team
