Daughter needs help.

Some of you may remember my daughter is a wrestler and a boxer who is hoping to be an MMA fighter. She is 12 years old now but big for her age and her body is undergoing puberty. Her physical maturity is closer to 13-14. She is 5'4 and 115 lbs.

My daughter was doing crossfit over the summer and it ended up helping her a great deal with her explosiveness which has always been a serious problem for her particularly when shooting. Her coaches were very careful to help her with form and making sure she developed skill well before she lifted any significant weight. We stopped going regularly for a while and just maintained what she was already lifting in the gym at the school in preparation for the wrestling season.

My daughter is hyper-mobile and she frequently runs into problems finding stretches that work for her, and what she notices is that a stretch will work for a while and then just no longer challenge her.

Leading up to the wrestling season, she started to notice her glutes were sore from wrestling practices. She was not getting sore from any of her typical lifts. (Deadlifts, front squats, back squats, etc). After a one wrestling practice she came home and had a little discomfort while sitting. We do small crossfit style workouts at home with considerably less weight then she is capable of lifting. (We live in an apartment, so small weights are really all that is practical). So we started her Fran workout of pull ups and thrusters for time using a 30 LB composite barbell. (Her 1 RM for Front Squats and Push Presses the two individual motions of the Thruster is FAR more then 30LB).

She began her workout and was doing excellent. At one point during the workout she said she felt a pop. I asked her if it hurt and she said it didn't, so she continued and actually shaved about 10 seconds off of her time from the previous week. About 10 minutes or so after the workout was when she developed pain in her tailbone that would manifest while sitting and while standing from sitting.

Long story short I took her to the ER, and then to the sports doctor, after X-Rays and an MRI they determined that there was nothing wrong with her tailbone, and that she had no fractures anywhere else. They prescribed physical therapy.

Physical therapy determined that her hamstrings, and glutes were very tight. And that she has weaknesses in her hips, hamstrings, and glutes.

They had her doing an insane amount of primarily body weight exercises to build strength in those areas. And had her do stretches most of the time afterward. I found myself kind of puzzled how the solution to dealing with tight hamstrings and glutes was to do things that inevitably make those things tight. They said when I asked about it that is why they had her stretch. The problem was as I described earlier, stretches don't work very well on her and eventually become useless.

Meanwhile, I took her to the chiropractor, and the massage therapist. The chiropractor said that her hip is out of alignment. The issue with this is that doctors point out that chiropractors apparently say that about everyone. They would give her adjustments and she did say she moved a little better afterward.

The massage therapist eventually realized that her sacrotuberous ligament was seriously tender. So she started working on it and that seemed to have the most effect of anything that we have been doing.

So now about 3 months later, almost $7,000 in physical therapy and a considerable amount of money spent on chiropractors and massage she is at this point going to miss the entire wrestling season. She has slowly improved but I am strongly starting to feel that the only thing that has actually been helping her is time. Working with physical therapy three times a week they are still reporting that she is very weak in her hips, glutes and hamstrings despite them having her work these things for almost 2 hours a session.

The sports doctor at the end of this time period was kind of sheepish as she didn't understand why my daughter wasn't better.

I had to take my daughter out of school because sitting down in class was complicating her injury. She was able to do 90% of her work at home anyway so it didn't impact her grades.

Nothing we do seems to solve the tightness in the glutes and hamstrings. My daughter says every time we got to massage she feels a bit better. But it has been an absurdly slow process.

Thoughts? Advice?

 

Has your daughter been tested for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome?

 

Side note, EDS is very different to what is known in the US, As hypermobile EDS, theyvet recently been bundled together, when they have very different root causes.

If your daughters hypermobile, Crossfit is a terrible idea.

Personally I would try to find a good physiotherapist with experience in hypermobility, good luck.

 

Well, don't take my answer as something aducated as it is not, it's just my plain thoughts with no real experience in the matter, but, I was just surprised if I got to the part where you spent 7.000 USD for therapies and so on to help her with muscle tightness.
I am not sure how severe the tightness is, but since your daughter is young, it get worse during and after exercise and you spend awful lot of money on physiotherapists that let her exersice for two hours... have you tried actually letting her rest for a few weeks maybe? I believe a child's body should be able to heal itself quite well and considering no one really found any injury (and she isn't getting better)... maybe she just needs a bit of rest?
Just my thoughts.

 

I did what the doctors told me to do. Which was to get her into physical therapy. My insurance covered the physical therapy up until now so I haven't had to pay for it yet but if she needs more I will.

 

If she's hyper mobile she probably doesn't need to stretch much at all. Quite the opposite. More work on posture, stability and strength. Although someone like Van Zandt should chip in on that. I and my daughter are hyper-mobile (well I was in my youth) and I've had a few jarring and joint issues because my body isn't resilient. I can't imagine the damage wrestling and cross-fit is doing to a young hyper-mobile body going through puberty.
I'm gonna be harsh and ask...is it your daughter that wants to do all this stuff or you that wants her to do all this?

 

As someone who is in absolutely no way qualified to give advice, I'd say "let her rest for a few weeks". Go to school, go home, play xbox and relax.

Oddly enough, a guy on the Joe Rogan podcast was talking about similar suggest injury. He suggested it being stress related. The guys name was David Goggins.

 

I'm curious how you came to the assumption that she doesn't get "actual" rest. Was there something in my description of the situation that says she trains 8 days a week and 365 days a year? This is a huge assumption on your part that just looks like a veiled insult.

Funny, because that's exactly what it sounded like.

The science suggesting that it's not safe for kids to lift weights was debunked a long time ago. I don't blame you for not knowing that as it's not common knowledge and the idea that it's not safe is being spread around still despite this. I can tell you firsthand that kids on the elite level of wrestling right now all lift weights. And that youth powerlifting is a growing sport. Wouldn't take you much googling to find videos of kids doing olympic lifts, and safely.

This article should be helpful to bring you up to speed.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin on Health, Fitness and Nutrition. | Children Can Lift Weights at Any Age

I actually have said no such thing. She is big for her age, which means she wrestles boys who are even bigger for their age.

The suggestions you made about whether or not strength training was needed simply don't match up to the reality of wrestling, particularly for a girl who competes against boys.

Considering the asinine assumptions you made, and the condescending at best way you spoke so far in this thread and insulting at worst way why would anyone be defensive? I don't get needlessly defensive. You got needlessly offensive right out of the gate, and so far have not even posted anything relevant to the actual question which was about the injury. I didn't ask for parenting advice from people who don't know me, or my daughter. I asked about this injury in the injury part of the forum as I was wondering if anyone else had encountered it and if they had what worked for them or what didn't.

That would be a consequence of you not actually knowing what you are talking about.

 

Her strength coaches are addressing posture, stability, and strength. The advice about not stretching lines up with some of the things I have heard and thank you for adding to that.

In training since she was 7 years old. Been doing Crossfit for two years. This is the first time since she started she has had a significant injury from Soccer, Boxing, Wrestling, Judo or BJJ.

Sigh....

When asked what she wanted for Christmas, she asked for wrestling gear. She has a huge poster of Muhammad Ali on her wall, along with pictures of her favorite wrestlers, boxers, MMA fighters, etc. She has at this point missed most of the wrestling season and she complains about that daily. I caught her doing stance and motion in her room the other day. She is a Multi-state champion, in both Freestyle and Folkstyle, and a state placer in Greco Roman. She loves boxing though it's hard to find opponents and she loves Crossfit, particularly because she can see her progress.

When we are at tournaments, little girls walk up to her and ask her for advice on their wrestling.

Again, I didn't ask for unsolicited parenting advice. Yes, she wants to do all this stuff. She is the first female starter in the history of our school middle school team and last year she was the hero who scored the pin that allowed us to win the state dual championships by a tiny 2 point lead.

When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was play football and do martial arts. It broke my mothers heart that she couldn't afford for me to do either. And my father did not support anything I wanted to do. So when I grew up I decided that whatever my kids WANTED to do I was going to give them. It used to be Soccer, she decided she wanted to do this, so now we are doing this. And it is seriously hurting her that she cannot help her team.

Now, do you have anything else relevant to add that is pertinent to the INJURY that this thread is about? Thank you for the points about hypermobility.

 

Well this is how:

If she does a lot of bodyweight exercises for two hours three times a week... how could you call that rest? You are doubting it could lessen the tightness yourself!

I would just let it go. If she has trouble, it is hars, but let her miss the season and let her rest, not taking her to physiotherapy/chiropractor/massage every single day. Does she want to be going there herself? Even if you don't see any improvement? I would say this by itself would put pressure on the girl. It would on me.

 

If your going to be pedantic, crossfit isn't the same as just lifting weights, crossfit has its own very specific issues around programming.

For fran issues see here

CrossFit Training: Measure Up With CrossFit’s "Fran" Workout | Muscle & Fitness

 

She is doing physical therapy AND resting as much as the medical professionals have suggested. There are 7 days in a week on earth. The physical therapist, and the sports doctor said that the issue would not be helped by just sitting around as they believe that it is a lack of strength in some areas.

 

She is resting EXACTLY as much as the sports doctor and physical therapist told her to.

You assumed that she was never resting, implying that I would do that to my kid. It's just "my own issue" it's you as a moderator behaving like a troll.

I haven't created any "perceptions". You made some "assumptions" and I responded negatively because of the attitude put into it. You people don't even know me.

You said it seemed "irresponsible" implying that I was doing something dangerous that could hurt my child, I pointed out to you that you were wrong and that the facts don't match up with your views. That was you not knowing what you were talking about. You also don't know me, or my daughter, or spend any time with us or around us. So you don't know what you are talking about that either.

Now. Did you have any useful insight into this type of injury or anything relevant to say?

 

You are right, we don't know anything about you, your daughter AND her injury. Why ask for advise here on the website where we can't see her, only to deny our attempts at using logic to help by saying we don't know anything about her and we're not professionals? More over when you say even professionals weren't able to help her. Why ask in the first place if you aren't ready to listen?
I think it is great that you are trying everything you can to help your daughter. It may be weakness in some muscles and bad posture, but as you described it, I may have misunderstood, but it sounded like sore muscles from overtraining.

Seeing as you tried just about everything and nothing works, I don't understand why trying to let her just rest for a couple of weeks would be any issue...

 

So far in this thread one person asked about a specific disease that I might get her tested for. This would of been advice that was actually relevant about the topic, and helpful. Another person shared some insight because of their athletic expiriences while being hyper-mobil.

Just about all of the other replies in this thread were ignorant commentary about parenting and ridiculous questions about whether or not my kid actually wants to participate in sports. Which have nothing to do with pain in your tailbone while sitting or standing from sitting. That is the part I am not interested in, and it has nothing to do with "logic".

She rested for almost three weeks doing literally nothing but eating, sleeping, and homework before she went to the first appointment with the medical doctor. She did not improve significantly during that time.

People have suggested and/or implied that I am just not letting her rest and it is somehow negligence on my part. I am letting her rest exactly as much as was suggested.

The reason I am asking for advice and commentary in the injury section of this forum is because injuries like these that make doctors scratch their heads in confusion are something that people from outside the situation with their own experiences of similar injuries can sometimes be helpful with.

 

Couple of more links on kids and weight lifting:

ACSM | Articles

Will your child stunt their growth if they lift weights? | Expert Blog | TransformingHealth.org

 

Crossfit isn't just weightlifting.

Crossfit Is known to be an injury risk,
(see here for examples, CrossFit Discussion Board)

Fran is well known to be a very hard workout, and hypermobile people have less natural protection from injury.