Training Around Hip Bursitis

I have had a knee injury and was going to rehab by doing a squat program (it helped), but over the winter holidays I randomly developed hip bursitis. I wasn’t lifting or anything so I’m confused how it happened. In any event, I can’t do anything that involves significant hip movement/knee bending and stress.

So, I’m pretty much limited to do doing an upper body split with some core and calf work, which is fine by me because I’m targeting that anyway since I used to cycle and race, which means I have more lower body strength.

Here’s the split that I worked out so far.

Monday Push/Calves
Tuesday Pull/Core
Weds off
Thurs Push/Calves/core about 60-75% of weight used on mon. Work on instantaneous speed.
Friday Pull about 60-75% of weight used on tues. Work on instantaneous speed.

Here’s the split:

Push:
Light flyes etc to warm up
Bench (5x5)
Incline Bench (5x5)
CG Bench(5x5)
OHP(5x5)
Behind Neck Press (3x10)
Skull Crushers (3x10)
Core work (do whatever doesn’t hurt my hip)
Pushups to exhaust muscles

Pull:
Pullups/Chinups to warm up
Bent over rows (5x5)
Shrugs(3x10)
Behind back Shrugs(3x10)
Upright rows (3x10)
Deadlift (1x5 work set)
Good Mornings (5x5)
DB Curl (3x10)
DB row (3x10)
Conc Curl (3x10)
Hammer Curl (3x10)
Wrist Curl (3x10)
Reverse Curl (3x10)

It looks like I have a lot more for pull, but it hits different things and takes about the same amount of time as the push workout.

I’d like to get any advice on how to improve this and such. I’ll admit that I’m relatively new to this.

Supplements: Creatine, Whey, Tribulus, and soon fish oil.

Thanks for the help.

Hip bursitis is a bitch. It took me months to recover and I couldn’t touch squats during that period. I also couldn’t dead lift - are you sure you can since there should be a lot of hip flexion involved? Stiff legging? Bursitis is usually an overuse injury so if you continue to aggrevate it you won’t recover.

I was able to slowly introduce more exercises as my range of pain free him motion increased. I didn’t need to completely drop legs only experiment for what I could do. The phases of reintroduction went something like:

  1. Leg extensions and hs curls
  2. Rack pulls and step ups
  3. Dead-lifts and lunges
  4. Front squats
  5. Back squats

As far as your split goes - looks pretty sucky to me. 14 exercises for pull day including deads is bat shit crazy imho. It would be 9 too many for me. I’m thinking you must be using very light weight to do that much volume. I would find a beginners routine and replace exercises that aggrevate your hip.

FWIW, I personally prefer a four day split over push/pull with much lower volume e.g.
Pullups
Bent over rows (3x10) (>5 reps)
Deadlift (1x5 work set)
DB Curl (3x10)
Hammer Curl (3x10)

Fish oil could help with inflammation and reduce the rubbing of the bursa so I would be taking a high dose ASAP.

Looking over things, it might be more helpful to try to get a 3 day split going.

Push:

Flyes etc for warmup
Bench (5x5)
Incline Bench (5x5)
CG Bench(5x5)
OHP(5x5)
Behind Neck Press (3x10)
Skull Crushers (3x10)
Pushups for exhaustion.

Pull:

Pullups/chinups
Bent over rows (5x5)
Shrugs(3x10)
Behind back Shrugs(3x10)
Upright rows (3x10)
DB row (3x10)
Wrist Curl (3x10)
Reverse Curl (3x10)

‘Other’:

Deadlift (1x5)
Good morning (5x5)
DB Curl (3x10)
Conc Curl (3x10)
Hammer Curl (3x10)
Calf Raises (3x10)
Core work

Monday: Push
Tues: Pull
Weds: ‘other’
Thurs/Fri/Sat: Repeat workouts with lighter weights to concentrate more on instantaneous force generation and form.

Would that be better? Splits look much more reasonable, right?

Deads actually don’t really aggravate it too much. It only hurts at the very beginning of the motion and it’s more like a ‘oh i remember i have an issue’ more than it is ‘oh fuck ow’. If I bend my knee too much it hurts, more if I’m squatting with weight vs coming up with weight. I got a cortisone shot last week. I ran for a second by mistake when I was trying to catch up with someone and my hip

That looks a bit more sane. Personally I think there is still some redudancy to clean up e.g. I wouldn’t bother with two shrugging movements, both OHP and BTN preses, or a 3rd curl variant. People vary so perhaps just be prepared to drop out some of the exercises if you find yourself half-arsing the work-out.

Six days\week isn’t productive for most people. To be a sustainable routine, most of us neeed more recovery and more life out of the gym. Note that your ‘other’ day is basically another pull day and back to back with actual pull day. A body part splt would work better if wanting a 3-day split without a leg day.

I do still suggest trying to find some sort of limted ROM leg exercise that doesn’t cause pain.

If I bend my knee too much it hurts, more if I’m squatting with weight vs coming up with weight.

Hmm. Sounds like different symptoms than I experienced. I’d expect hip extension\flexion not knee movements to cause the pain but I’m no physio…

Well basically what happens is that as I bend my knees, the muscles on the side of my hips move over the bursa causing it to hurt even more. I’m not sure what does it, but I’m going to avoid doing leg stuff till that happens.

I can still do calf raises, but I can’t think of anything I can do to isolate the quad that won’t hurt it. Quad extensions are out too. I want to try this for a few weeks in hopes that it’ll make the bursitis go away faster.

As far as the split goes:

Push: Keep same.

Pull:
Take out behind the neck press and add in military DB press (lighter weights higher reps).
Possibly alternate behind the back shrugs and shrugs. Normally my grip gives out before my muscles. I’m getting some straps to remedy this.

Take away bent over rows and do lying rows or upright rows instead.

Deads day:

No deads or GM’s. Need to avoid hip rotation movements.

I agree that there’s still some redundancy that should be taken out, and that a body part split might be better. If I’m going for a 5-6 day split how would I design a body part split without quads or knee movement in it? I’ve never done that before.

I can be in the gym for 5-6 days a week, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be.

I could do my current routine and do [push/pull/deads/off] for the format so I can get some rest in there. Perhaps I could set up the main lifts in a dynamic speed workout for the 2nd time around so I don’t wear myself out?

OTOH, having the weekends off would be great, so maybe a better body part split is in order so I can hit everything twice over the 5 day period.

Can someone please help with that setup? Given the leg constraint, I’m not sure what I could do.

Thanks so much.

Train each bodypart twice per week. Use different exercises at each workout. Train your good leg if possible with leg extension, leg curl, and leg press. This is how I trained when I was recovering from knee surgery.

Don’t dedicate a full day to 60-70% weights for force production. If you follow the ramping principals your first few sets will take care of this for you.

I broke down your exercises into separate days:

Day 1 Push:
Barbell Bench (5x5)
Incline Barbell Bench (5x5)
OHP(5x5)
Skull Crushers (3x10)
Core work (do whatever doesn’t hurt my hip)
Pushups to exhaust muscles

Day 2 Pull:
Deadlift (1x5 work set)
DB row (5x5)
Shrugs(3x10)
Upright rows (3x10)
DB Curl (3x10)
Reverse Curl (3x10)

Day 3: Push
Incline Dumbell Bench (5x5)
Dumbell Bench (5x5)
Behind Neck Press (3x10)
CG Bench(5x5)
Core work (do whatever doesn’t hurt my hip)
Pushups to exhaust muscles

Day 4 Pull:
Good Mornings (5x5)
Pullups/Chinups (3x10)
Bent over rows (5x5)
Behind back Shrugs(3x10)
Conc Curl (3x10)
Hammer Curl (3x10)
Wrist Curl (3x10)

Thanks for the help ACTrain!

I actually realized that I wasn’t helping anything with deadlifts/rackpulls or good mornings because my hips had to move.

I’m not sure how I’m going to add in any lower back work because of that. I was hoping to add in upright rows since those work your erectors as stabilizers.

I know that nothing I do can replace the deadlift, but would adding in something like upright rows be beneficial since I’d be stabilizing my spine which I wouldn’t be doing at all right now.

I could also try back extensions with plates in my hand, but I think that might hurt too.

I’m also not sure if I should be doing bent over rows. I might sub in lying rows for those if they bother me.

I’ve also had trouble getting onto my back on a bench with dumbbells because of the hip rolling involved, so if that doesn’t work I might have to sub in barbell for the incline and flat DB presses.

[quote]ridethecliche wrote:
Thanks for the help ACTrain!

I actually realized that I wasn’t helping anything with deadlifts/rackpulls or good mornings because my hips had to move.

I’m not sure how I’m going to add in any lower back work because of that. I was hoping to add in upright rows since those work your erectors as stabilizers.

I know that nothing I do can replace the deadlift, but would adding in something like upright rows be beneficial since I’d be stabilizing my spine which I wouldn’t be doing at all right now.

I could also try back extensions with plates in my hand, but I think that might hurt too.

I’m also not sure if I should be doing bent over rows. I might sub in lying rows for those if they bother me.

I’ve also had trouble getting onto my back on a bench with dumbbells because of the hip rolling involved, so if that doesn’t work I might have to sub in barbell for the incline and flat DB presses.

[/quote]

It will take some trial and error to figure out what exercises you can do. Just go with how your body reacts to them. When I first returned from knee surgery I worked out almost exclusively on machines. You don’t realize how much other bodyparts are involved in movements until you are hurt.

Thanks man.

I think overall the main lifts in this are perfect. It’s not a big deal to swap out BBs for DBs, so that should be fine.

I’ve been fine doing deadlifts and squats lately, but every now and then my hip would hurt much worse than before. I’ve had a cortisone shot in the bursa and I’m taking ibuprofen so I don’t want those to mask the pain while I workout so I’ll concentrate on the 2 days on one day off scheme and see how I progress for the next couple of months. I can reevaluate where I’m at then, and hopefully add in the legs part of the equation by mid march or so.

Thanks again.