Hip Pain, How to Prevent & Fix it.
Hip pain is sort of vague isn’t it? Are we talking about the front, the sides, the back or even deep in the joint? …Why not all of the angles?
The hip is a complex ball & socket joint and most of us in this day & age simply sit for too long and don’t squat for hours like our ancestors did so we suffer from the tension that occurs when you don’t live in a deep range of motion every single day. We would all like hip pain relief when it gets too out of control but sometimes we don’t even know what the problem is in the first place!
The hip can get really gnarly in the later stages of tension and if you’ve ever experienced any kind of shooting pains down the leg, tingling into the foot or knee pain on the lateral side etc… you know exactly what I mean. So what gives? Are we just here to have sore hips, pain in our knees & legs & killer headaches? No! Most of the hip pain people feel is purely because of muscular imbalances. Sometimes those muscular imbalances become so severe that you get all kinds of odd sensations going. How does a muscle up in your hip activate pain or tingling in your toes? Lots of tension, that’s how.
Let’s break this down into 3 sections, the front of the hip, the sides & the back. Each part works in tandem with the other but they have specific issues & symptoms.
THE FRONT OF THE HIP:
The most common issue here - Tight hip flexors & quadricep tension
How you’ll feel it - Pinching in the hip joint or quad weakness
Real life example - You struggle with any kind of squatting motion
What to do about it - If you give your quads a good stretch you’ll pickup one hip flexor muscle and get things moving again but you really want to open the hip up fully with something like the couch stretch or the warrior pose which will de-compress your hip joint heartily.
THE SIDES OF THE HIP:
The most common issue here - Scrunched up TFL & Glutes
How you’ll feel it - Pinching on the sides of the hip sometimes with radiating pain into the knee or down the leg
Real life example - You struggle to squeeze your legs/glutes
What to do about it - You really want to open up the glutes and your lateral band here. Something like a side bend or using a trigger point ball/roller on the ITB & Lateral glute muscles will do absolute wonders for you.
THE BACK OF THE HIP:
The most common issue here - Sciatic-esque pains & lower back issues.
How you’ll feel it - Pinching on the sides of the hip sometimes with radiating pain into the knee or down the leg
Real life example - You bend over and get hit with awful back pain or you are mid step and feel a shooting pain.
What to do about it - You can give yourself temporary relief with a yoga pose like downward dog or by doing hamstring pikes but the crux of the issue here is likely to be excessive anterior pelvic tilt (Your Hip Flexors are too tight and your glutes are weak!) So work on those too.
Hip pain isn’t something you have to live with or suffer with every day. Most of the time your muscles & body is just pulling you out in all different directions and once it tightens up too much, it will let you know.
You can experience a great deal of relief by stretching your hip at home but you might already be at that point where it hurts a bunch just to stretch your hip at all. It’s definitely here where I’d say a session with your Massage Therapist and some good ol Remedial Massage is going to be your best bet. Loosen things off first & then give it a good stretch afterwards.
