Lateral rotation of leg

[Kon-El]

Basically I cannot rotate my right leg in such a way that if my knee is bent my foot goes outward. To clarify, as a result of this, while I can easily bring my left knee to my shoulder, my right knee strays further to the right, just trying to move it to go the right way hurts a lot, to the point where I cannot seem to just truly force it all the way. Also it only does this after getting about halfway through the full ROM (which would be fine for an average person but not for an athlete), as soon as I lift my knee beyond hip level (say while standing) I lose the ability to continue moving it on that path and my knee rotates internally. I was wondering if anyone has ever experienced this or has any ideas.
According to exrx (http://www.exrx.net/Articulations/Knee.html#anchor26532 ) it seems that only the hamstring is involved in this motion (though this was not at all intuitive and I imagined there'd be other muscles I don't know of involved) However stretching my hamstring does not help in any way. One method that works for a very short period of time is seated biking on the low bike, slowly forcing my knee to stay close to the median, rather than move out as it usually does, while gradually adjusting the seat to bring my leg closer to my chest. I've found that while there are some immediate small results they don't seem to have any effect in the long term.
While its not the most vital motion, I sometimes find it very annoying and hope I can find some answers.
Thanks

[tuareg]

I have basically the same thing, i cant rotate my leg inwards. It sucks haha.

[Dobi]

perhaps you have a blockade in the hips. a good osteopath should find it and perhaps be able to fix it.

[Kon-El]

thats interesting, I may see one if nothing changes in the next month or so. The thing is, I'm almost sure this didn't exist when I was younger so I don't know if its an anatomical thing. Anyway, no ideas on stretching it?

[Dobi]

i think you are stretching it but without much succes, so this could be the problem.
another thing you could try is some self myofascial release on the hip rotators with a foam roller or, for the muscles that are hard to target, with a tennis ball.

[Kon-El]

pardon my stupidity, but what is a foam roller?

[Dobi]

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=475832

[Kon-El]

thanks.

[Kon-El]

My cheapness inclines me to just go for the 1' long one for about 10 bucks, but is it perhaps worth investing in the larger 3' one? Any experience with these?

[Dobi]

most muscels could be targeted with the short version i think. i have the long version ( of course i have the long version :D ) but you always only use one part of it (lol). except you have ronnie coleman style legs :wink:
or perhaps you can build one yourself.
and try a tennisball for the small thinks at the lateral part of your ass.
ps: it will take some time until you "learn" how to do smr, how to hit the trigger points and how to relax while doing so. but imo it's worth the patience.

[Ashtar]

Perhaps you have tight external hip rotators on your right side. The gluteus maximus serves to externally rotate the hip, is it when you do the glute stretch in Juj's tutorial that there's pain?