By strengthening the hip joint, you can provide your legs with a more stable and balanced foundation to keep your upright as you move through your day. Senior hip strengthening exercises can even help relievepain in the hipsand knees.
This article provides six senior hip exercises to maintain hip health, reduce your risk of falls, and improve your mobility.
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Hip Strengthening Exercises
The hip is a multidirectional joint that moves in three different planes. It allows the leg to move forward and backward, out to the side and across the body, and rotate internally and externally.
It is important for seniors to strengthen their hip muscles and joints in order to reduce the risk of falling. Furthermore, hip exercises can decrease pain and stiffness due to arthritis and other joint conditions, and maintain adequate strength and mobility for everyday activities.
These six senior hip exercises can help you do just that.
Seated Marching
This exercise strengthens the hip flexor muscles, which are responsible for lifting the leg up. This motion is especially important for advancing the legs while walking andgoing up stairs.
To perform this exercise:
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This exercise helps strengthen the glute muscles, specifically the gluteus medius muscles on the sides of the hips, which support and stabilize the pelvis and improve standing balance.
If you want to take this exercise up a notch, follow these steps:
Standing Hip Extension
Another senior hip exercise that strengthens the glute muscles is the standing hip extension exercise. This hip exercise also improves core strength to support your spine and take pressure off your hips.
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Standing Hip Abduction
This exercise helps strengthen the gluteus medius muscles on the sides of the hips to improvehip abduction—the movement of the leg away from the midline of the body. Hip abduction allows you to step out to the side, get in and out of a car, and other sideways movements.
Sit to Stand
The sit to stand exercise helps strengthen the glute muscles. It is similar to a standing squat, except that it utilizes a chair to protect your knees. This hip exercise improves your ability to squat safely, preventing falls while using the restroom, cleaning, or other movements that require you to bend at the knees and hips.
To add a little bit more challenge to this exercise, try to:
How to Exercise Safely
The senior hip exercises included in this article are meant to be performed safely and easily at home. If you find that any exercise creates pain or feels unsafe, skip it and try something else. You can always work your way up.
For example, if standing is difficult for you, start with exercises that are performed while seated or lying down. This way, you can spend some time building strength from a more comfortable position before moving on to standing exercises.
You might also find it helpful to perform standing exercises next to something stable, like a railing, table, or chair that you can utilize for support.
As you move through your hip exercises, focus on keeping your hips square and level. Avoid any unnecessary twisting or rotating in your hips, which can be harmful to your joints and make the exercise less effective.
When to See a Healthcare Provider
If you are experiencing significant hip pain, stiffness, orinflammation, you should see your healthcare provider to address your symptoms, determine a possible diagnosis, and refer you tophysical therapyif necessary.
Don’t hesitate to call your doctor or go to the emergency room for any of the following symptoms:
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Summary
Keeping your hips strong with exercises will allow you to perform everyday activities like standing, walking, going up and down stairs, and squatting or bending with ease. They can also decrease pain and stiffness and reduce the risk of falling.
If you are struggling to do these exercises or are not seeing any benefit, talk to your healthcare provider about getting a referral to physical therapy.
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