Pain in the butt seat

[MChase]

If it's any help, if you want to stress your back, just do a sprint piece for about 4 min. It would seem that if your butt problem is simply a matter of padding, doing a hard piece should not make a real difference. If it's a matter of radiation of pain from a bulging disc, then you can expect it to hurt more. At least, that's my experience.

[platypus]

I use to get a sore butt when rowing in my scull and always blamed the seat for it. However, after some adjustments in the boat I realize that wasn't the problem at all.

By simply raising the height of my seat by 1cm the problem has completely gone way (even after spending a couple of hours on the water). I use no padding whatsoever or any special kind of rowing shorts.

Some Wintech seats have height adjustment but I just added a 1 cm timber spacer between the seat and the axel frame.
I now believe that people should look at the relationship between footstretcher height/angle and seat height before adding unnecessary padding to the seat. Too much foam padding under your butt may lead to instability in the boat whereas raising the seat instead gives you a firmer position when driving with your legs.

[1xsculler]

MChase, My butt definitely hurts more when I do more high pressure pieces. No matter what, more than an hour in my boat is somewhat uncomfortable. It always has been but I have almost no back pain at all. I'm asuming that every rower's back is a little painful or strained after every training session. It seems that when doing high pressure work I lift my butt off of my seat a little, or at least lighten the contact, and then drop it back down at the release. I thought that was the reason for more butt discomfort. Changing seats and seat pads around has helped a lot and it seems that my butt pain is getting better. I have always tried to get as low in my boat as possible but I may try adding that 1cm recommended by platypus. Tomorrow I'm trying the larger of the two seats I got from Dreher (I had to grind quite a bit off the sides of the seat to fit it to my boat) and my sorbothane pad. I'll take the Skwoosh pad along incase I need it too. The holes in the large seat are a lot bigger than the ones in the smaller seat.

[MChase]

I left out an obvious question: Do you have bilateral or unilateral butt pain? I just assumed it was unilateral, a foolish assumption, but one that I made because my pain was always on the side of my subsequent bulge of my disc. If your pain is bilateral, then the chances diminish that it might be related to a disc. My brother's was unilateral butt pain too.

[1xsculler]

My butt pain is bilateral but more pronounced on the right side. By specialist do you mean an ortho Doc or one who is even more of a back specialist ortho Doc?

[MChase]

Either an orthopedist or neurosurgeon who operates on backs. Someone familiar with the signs, symptoms, radiographic findings, and expected course left untreated or treated surgically.

[1xsculler]

Thanks, MChase. I must follow up for piece of mind.

[1xsculler]

I had a pretty thorough exam by my regular physician today and he is quite confident my butt pain is due to a bursitis of my medial hip joint compartment (not sure I got the terminology correct) and that it is not disc related but I had a lumbar-saccral MRI taken anyway which I will show to my PT tomorrow and my orthopedic Doc, along with the radiologist's report, on Wed. None of my pain is of the burning type and I have no tingling or numbness. I'm feeling much, much better and am cautiously optomistic. Googling butt pain and bulging disc produced some really scary info. I'll try out my new Skwoosh Master Rower's pad on my small Dreher seat tomorrow and also move my seat top back down the couple of centimeters I moved it up for Wednesdays work out. Raising the seat didn't help.

[scullerjonny]

get a custom carl douglas seat. They are expensive...but considering how much time we all spend sliding around on our asses...its worth it.

[1xsculler]

After consulting my regular physican, a PT, an orthopedic surgeon and a neurologist with my MRI in hand I've decided that my butt pain is one of the bursitis conditions described on page 40 of Volker Nolte's "Rowing Faster." I'm hoping I can manage the pain with one of various seat pads I use in my boat and the 6" thick chunk of foam I use on my erg. If I take a day off the pain almost goes away completely. Maybe I'll take some time off after the HOCR and the HOTL.
Thanks to everyone who contributed some of their experiences.