Hip pain can severely limit your ability to live the life you want. Things like walking, running, or climbing stairs can become frustrating and painful. If it’s bad enough, sleeping can even become problematic. When this happens, you really want to have a plan to solve hip pain.
There are many types of hip pain. One that we see a lot is pain on the side of the hip. This is often present right along the bony part of the hip that you can feel at the top of your thigh.
This bone is call the Greater Trochanter and pain in this area is called Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome. This is an overly complex name that really just means “pain on the side of your hip”.
The most common cause of pain in this area is hip muscle weakness, particularly the glutes. Your glute muscles work to provide power as well as stability and control at your hip.
Fortunately you can often solve hip pain with some basic exercises. Here are 3 easy exercises you can do to improve the strength of these muscles and help solve hip pain.
Standing Hip Abduction
Standing hip abduction is a great exercise to start getting your glutes working properly again.
Start by using no resistance. As it gets easier, you can add a band around your ankles to make it more difficult.
- Stand facing a wall or kitchen counter. You don’t need the squat rack. You can use your fingers on the wall or counter to help you keep your balance if you need it
- Lift your affected diagonally back and to the side. Hold for 5 seconds, then lower back down.
- You should feel this exercise working in side of your hip and butt
- Make sure to move only your hip. A “cheat” for this exercise would be to lean to the side as you lift your leg. This works your back muscles more than your glutes and reduced the effectiveness of the exercise.
- Start with 2 sets of 10 reps. Work up to 3 sets before adding resistance.
- Do these at least every other day for maximum effectiveness.
- Do this on both legs. It gives you a good comparison to the uninjured leg.
- It is totally normal to feel the stance leg glute working as well as the moving leg. This is because the glutes of the standing leg are working to help you maintain balance.
Single Leg Balance
In daily life, your glute muscles are mostly used to stabilize your hip and pelvis, especially during the stance phase of walking. Single leg balance works on strengthening your glutes by using the same mechanism.
- Stand with both feet on the floor in front of a wall or kitchen counter.
- Start with your hands on the counter/wall to help you balance
- Pick up the unaffected leg
- Remove your hands from the wall/counter
- Ideally hold for 30 seconds and do 3 to 5 reps with 30 seconds rest between.
- If 30 seconds is too long, start with 10 second holds, but shoot for 8-10 reps.
- Do this at least every other day.
- Do this on both legs so you can compare legs and recognize the progress you are making.
Side Step Down
This is the most advance exercise on this list. The goal of this exercise is to control the position of your hips and your knee while your knee and hip bend.
This is affects daily life when going up and down stairs and is a precursor to running and jumping.
- Your hips and pelvis should stay parallel to each other throughout the movement.
- The knee of your foot that is on the step should stay lined up with the middle of that same foot.
- In the video, you can see this person’s pelvis gets a little unlevel. Having the hands on the hips allows you to use the elbows almost as a level to see when the pelvis tips.
- You can do this in a mirror or setup your phone or tablet in front of you to see how you’re doing.
- Do 3 sets of 10 of these at least every other day.
- You don’t need to stand on weights. A step in your house, or a curb will do fine.
- To make the exercise, less challenging, use a lower step. To make it more challenging use a higher step.
None of the exercises above should make you hurt more.
These exercises are a great place to start. If you have pain when running or playing sports but not at rest or with walking, you may need to start with more advanced exercises.
If you’ve tried these and you’re still hurting, we can help you!
At Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine, our physical therapists are experts at treating hip pain and will develop a plan to help you stop it.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to request and appointment.
A member of our team will schedule you an appointment with one of our expert physical therapists.
What happens if you don’t have a plan to solve hip pain?
- You stop running or playing sports because your hip hurts
- You avoid going on walks with friends because you’re afraid of hurting your hip
- You get out of shape and are more likely to get other diseases and injuries
But WITH a plan to solve hip pain you can live the confident and active life you want.
The exercises above are a great way to get started. They don’t require a lot of time and are pretty easy to do correctly.
But if you want an expert to listen to your unique problems and guide you to success, a Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine physical therapist in Alexandria, Springfield, or Arlington, VA will create a plan specifically for you.
You’ll feel confident that you have the knowledge and ability to solve hip pain and do all the things you want.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to schedule your appointment and start your path to healing.
Working to keep you living your best life,
The Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine Team
