Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsCausesTreatmentPreventionHip Stretches
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
Causes
Treatment
Prevention
Hip Stretches
While some level of soreness is normal, if your hips hurt after running, it may mean that you have injured yourself. Having weak core muscles, an old injury, or poor movement patterns can contribute to hip pain as well.
skaman306 / Getty Images
Common Causes of Hip Pain After Running
Muscle Strains
Muscle strains, or “pulled” muscles, can occur from running. This injury results when tiny tears develop in your muscles from too much training or running farther or faster than you are used to.
For example. straining yourgluteus medius muscle, located under your large buttock muscle called thegluteus maximus, can cause hip pain. You will most likely feel this pain on the outside and/or back of your hip. This muscle is important for absorbing shock when your foot hits the ground while running.
A gluteus medius injury can also cause pain during other daily activities, such as climbing stairs, jumping, and sitting for long periods of time.
Other muscles that move your hip can be strained with running, but they might not cause pain in your hip. Muscle strains typically affect the widest part of these muscles, causing pain along the front or back of your thighs.
Sore muscles often improve with activity. However, if your hip soreness gets worse while you’re running, stop. This could be a sign of injury.
Tendonitis
Tendonitis can affect several different tendons in your hip, including:
Bursitis
Bursaeare fluid-filled cushions that are located around the joints throughout your body. These structures can become inflamed from repeated pressure or friction, causing a condition calledbursitis.
There are two bursae that can cause hip pain after running:
Trochanteric bursitiscauses pain right at its location on the outside of the hip. This condition can cause pain with running, climbing stairs, squatting, and standing up from a chair after you’ve been sitting for a long time. However, pain from trochanteric bursitis is often worse at night—particularly if you roll onto the affected hip.
Iliopsoas bursitis is less common and causes pain on the front inside of your hip in the groin area.
What is runner’s hip?Runner’s hip is a general term used to describe hip pain in runners. It can be used to describe a number of different injuries, from bursitis of the hip to muscle strains.
What is runner’s hip?
Runner’s hip is a general term used to describe hip pain in runners. It can be used to describe a number of different injuries, from bursitis of the hip to muscle strains.
Labral Tears
Your hip is a ball-and-socket joint. The ball at the top of your femur fits into a socket on your pelvis. Thelabrumis a ring of cartilage that runs around the edge of the socket to help stabilize your joint.
Tears in the labrumcan occur from wear and tear during repetitive activities, such as running. These injuries usually cause sharp pain in the front of the hip, near your groin. Other symptoms can include difficulty moving your hip, feeling like your hip is going to give out, clicking in your hip joint, or feeling like your hip is locked up.
Osteoarthritis
Osteroarthritis(OA) is a condition that occurs when the cartilage, or padding between bones and your joints, gradually wears away. Ultimately, your bones can rub against each other causing severe pain.
OA develops over time and is more common with older age. It also tends to run in families. You are also more likely to have OA in your hip if you’ve had other hip injuries, including labral tears.
Early on, you might only notice pain only after weight-bearing activities, such as running. Your hip might be stiff after you’ve been sitting for a while, or when you first get up in the morning. Eventually, pain can also occur even when you aren’t active.
Stress Fracture
Hip stress fracturesare cracks in your bone that develop from repetitive stress—such as running. Most commonly, these occur near the ball at the top of the femur rather than in the socket of your hip joint.
Symptoms of a hip stress fracture include an achy-type pain in the front of your hip and groin. This pain gets worse with walking or running, but it improves with rest. However, severe stress fractures can cause pain all the time.
How Are Hip Injuries From Running Treated?
There is a variety of treatments for treating hip pain after running. Treatment depends on the extent of your injury and how long you have had your symptoms.
Conservative Treatment
You may be able to get rid of hip pain after running with conservative treatments, particularly if you address your symptoms early. Treatments include:
How long does it take for a runner’s hip to heal?Hip pain should start to improve within a week or two of treatment, depending on the severity of the injury. If your symptoms are not getting better, see your healthcare provider or physical therapist.
How long does it take for a runner’s hip to heal?
Hip pain should start to improve within a week or two of treatment, depending on the severity of the injury. If your symptoms are not getting better, see your healthcare provider or physical therapist.
Injections
If oral medications are not effective, your healthcare provider might choose to inject medications directly into your hip.Corticosteroidsare strong anti-inflammatory medications that are frequently injected to treat conditions such as tendonitis, bursitis, and osteoarthritis.
Typically, these medications begin to work two or three days after the injection. However, they are not always effective, and can only be performed two or three times in the same area. The overuse of steroids actually can cause further damage to your tissues.
Hip osteoarthritiscan also be treated with hyaluronic acid injections. This substance helps to lubricate the hip joint and decrease stiffness that often occurs with this condition.
Surgery
Severe hip injuries might require surgery. Significant muscle or tendon tears need to be repaired to restore full function. Labral tears that don’t respond to conservative treatment might require surgery to smooth out frayed edges that are causing issues with your joint.
Advanced osteoarthritis in the hip is often treated with surgery, such asdebridement(cleaning up rough edges) or a total hip replacement.
Strengthening Your Hips to Prevent Injury
While there’s no surefire way to prevent hip injuries from running, there are steps you can take to decrease your risk:
Should I run through hip pain?Don’t push through hip pain. If you develop hip pain while running, you should stop and take a few days of rest to see if the pain improves. Do some gentle stretching exercises and take OTC pain medications if needed. If you pain doesn’t get better, see your healthcare provider.
Should I run through hip pain?
Don’t push through hip pain. If you develop hip pain while running, you should stop and take a few days of rest to see if the pain improves. Do some gentle stretching exercises and take OTC pain medications if needed. If you pain doesn’t get better, see your healthcare provider.
Stretches to Relieve Hip Pain
Gently stretching the hips can help relieve pain and increase mobility to prevent hip pain in the future.
If your hips hurt after running, these stretches may help:
Stretching should feel slightly uncomfortable, but it should never be painful. Stretching your hips too far can tear tissues and lead to more hip pain. Take care to ease into your hip stretches gently and pull back on the stretch if it starts to hurt.
Summary
Symptoms can sometimes be managed with activity modification, medications, and physical therapy. More severe injuries or conditions can require surgery. Your risk of hip injury can be reduced with proper warm-ups, stretching, strength training, and training.
7 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Godshaw B, Wong M, Ojard C, Williams G, Suri M, Jones D.Acute traumatic tear of the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus in a marathon runner.Ochsner J. 2019;19(4):405-409. doi:10.31486/toj.18.0090Frizziero A, Vittadini F, Pignataro A, et al.Conservative management of tendinopathies around hip.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016 Sep;6(3):281-292. doi:10.11138/mltj/2016.6.3.281American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Hip bursitis.University of Utah Health.Labral tear.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Osteoarthritis of the hip.NYI Langone Hospitals.Surgery for osteoarthritis of the hip.Short S, MacDonald C, Strack D.Hip and groin injury prevention in elite athletes and team sport - Current challenges and opportunities.IJSPT. 2021 Feb;16(1):270-281. doi:doi:10.26603/001c.18705
7 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Godshaw B, Wong M, Ojard C, Williams G, Suri M, Jones D.Acute traumatic tear of the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus in a marathon runner.Ochsner J. 2019;19(4):405-409. doi:10.31486/toj.18.0090Frizziero A, Vittadini F, Pignataro A, et al.Conservative management of tendinopathies around hip.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016 Sep;6(3):281-292. doi:10.11138/mltj/2016.6.3.281American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Hip bursitis.University of Utah Health.Labral tear.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Osteoarthritis of the hip.NYI Langone Hospitals.Surgery for osteoarthritis of the hip.Short S, MacDonald C, Strack D.Hip and groin injury prevention in elite athletes and team sport - Current challenges and opportunities.IJSPT. 2021 Feb;16(1):270-281. doi:doi:10.26603/001c.18705
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Godshaw B, Wong M, Ojard C, Williams G, Suri M, Jones D.Acute traumatic tear of the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus in a marathon runner.Ochsner J. 2019;19(4):405-409. doi:10.31486/toj.18.0090Frizziero A, Vittadini F, Pignataro A, et al.Conservative management of tendinopathies around hip.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016 Sep;6(3):281-292. doi:10.11138/mltj/2016.6.3.281American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Hip bursitis.University of Utah Health.Labral tear.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Osteoarthritis of the hip.NYI Langone Hospitals.Surgery for osteoarthritis of the hip.Short S, MacDonald C, Strack D.Hip and groin injury prevention in elite athletes and team sport - Current challenges and opportunities.IJSPT. 2021 Feb;16(1):270-281. doi:doi:10.26603/001c.18705
Godshaw B, Wong M, Ojard C, Williams G, Suri M, Jones D.Acute traumatic tear of the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus in a marathon runner.Ochsner J. 2019;19(4):405-409. doi:10.31486/toj.18.0090
Frizziero A, Vittadini F, Pignataro A, et al.Conservative management of tendinopathies around hip.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016 Sep;6(3):281-292. doi:10.11138/mltj/2016.6.3.281
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Hip bursitis.
University of Utah Health.Labral tear.
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Osteoarthritis of the hip.
NYI Langone Hospitals.Surgery for osteoarthritis of the hip.
Short S, MacDonald C, Strack D.Hip and groin injury prevention in elite athletes and team sport - Current challenges and opportunities.IJSPT. 2021 Feb;16(1):270-281. doi:doi:10.26603/001c.18705
Meet Our Medical Expert Board
Share Feedback
Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?OtherHelpfulReport an ErrorSubmit
Was this page helpful?
Thanks for your feedback!
What is your feedback?OtherHelpfulReport an ErrorSubmit
What is your feedback?
