Title. I’m around month 6 of lingering symptoms like the occasional/tightness. I walk around 10-12k steps a day because that helps. Seems like it sticks around longer the more I think about it at this point. Wondering when/if I’ll ever be back at 100% 🥹 I miss training like I used to
It first started after college when I got an office job (August 2024). Around October of that year, I started getting horrible lower back pain. I assumed this was from sitting all day and my body wasn’t used to it. Mind you I go to the gym 3-5x a week and didn’t do any weightlifting aside from cardio because of this pain.
Fast forward to March 2025, pain radiating down my leg started. I got pins and needles type of feeling, but never past my knee. I tried to steer clear of any appointments as I thought maybe my body was just tight from not moving as much. I chalked it up to being tendinitis for some reason (wrong). I ended up putting myself into a full blown flare up. Hurt to walk, could barely walk up the stairs, etc. I finally went to PT and he told me it was sciatica. We came to the conclusion that it was from my poor posture at work (which I did have some nasty posture). The instant I sat up straight, the constant pain stopped, so this had to have been the culprit. I immediately fixed how I was sitting at work after this.
My PT gave me some exercises/stretches to do. During this, I tried to walk more. I was getting less than 2k steps a day. My flare up lasted about a month (the worst of it was probably from September-October 2025) until it started to improve. I was starting to slowlyyyy make my way back into the gym. Fast forward February 2026, I was slowly getting back into my hinge movements (RDLs, step ups, etc.) with little to no weight, focusing on form. Late February I was pretty much 90% back to lifting how I was. My sciatica seemed to be gone!
I started to introduce kickbacks. Unfortunately, I shouldn’t have. Ever since, I have felt tightness pretty much behind my knee only. At this point it’s not even all the time that I feel it. I’m getting about 10k steps a day and feel generally okay, but my left leg is tighter than my right and I don’t feel it’s 100% yet. My posture has changed a ton as well. I’ve been working on my core strength, glutes, etc. any hinge movement I’m scared to do. Like I said that leg is overall tighter and I’m scared I’m going to pull something even though my weights are not heavy. It has been so long of me trying to rehab this and get my strength back up, but I feel like I’m at a dead end at this point . I know I’m improving but when will this leg stop feeling so tight??!! I worked quads today and behind my knee feels tighter than normal. I am tired.
I just needed to let this out. I feel like I should not be feeling this for as long as I have. I had an MRI on my hip because I was starting to get hip pain and all was normal. My PT ruled out a herniated disc so I honestly just don’t know. I don’t have money to get another MRI on my spine. UGH.