If you have hip tendonitis, exercises may help relieve your pain. Hip tendonitis is an irritation of the tendons attached to the hip flexor muscles. This can make it difficult to walk, run, climb stairs, or stand up from a seated position.
Hip tendonitis is often treated with physical therapy exercises to stretch and strengthen the hip flexors and surrounding muscles.Other painful hip conditions can also benefit from these exercises includehip arthritisortrochanteric bursitis.
This article provides eight exercises to help relieve hip flexor tendonitis. It explains hip anatomy and how these exercises can help restore hip function and prevent future injuries.
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The Hip Joint and Tendonitis
Your hip is a ball and socket joint. The ball is located at the uppermost part of your thigh bone, and it fits into a socket in your pelvis. Severalligamentshold the bones together, and muscles help move your hips.
The muscles attach to your hip bones via tendons, and overuse of these tendons may cause pain and inflammation. Inflammation is your body’s normal healing mechanism for injured tissues and causes chemical and mechanical changes to the affected tendons.
The chemicals involved in the inflammatory process may make you feel pain in the injured tissue. This is a good thing. Pain causes you to limit your motion and allow healing to take place.
If you are experiencing hip pain, you should visit your healthcare provider for a checkup. They can examine your hip, perform diagnostic studies likeX-raysormagnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and determine if hip tendonitis is causing your pain.
Treatment for your condition should focus on gainingrange of motionand strength in your hip.These exercises are a good way to accomplish that goal.
Hip Flexor Exercises for Tendonitis
If you have hip tendonitis, start off slowly and let pain be your guide. Both acute (sudden) and chronic tendonitis can cause pain that limits your movements. Listen to your body, and don’t overdo it.
Choose exercises that focus on gaining pain-free motion and strength, like the hip flexor stretch, the pelvic tilt, and the standing butt squeeze. Perform one set of five to 10 repetitions once daily for these exercises.
As your pain subsides and your hip strength and mobility improve, you can add one exercise every few days until you can perform all of the exercises in one session.
As your pain improves, you can increase the number of sets and repetitions of each exercise. Two to three sets of 15 repetitions is a good goal to aim for.
Once your hip pain is better, the exercises can be done three to five times each week to maintain strength and mobility to prevent future problems with your hip tendonitis. Three sets of 15 to 20 repetitions are recommended to maintain hip health and prevent future occurrences of hip tendonitis or trochanteric bursitis.
Before starting any exercise for hip tendonitis, check in with your physician or physical therapist. They can be sure you are exercising properly, and that exercise is safe for you to do. Also, stop any exercise that causes pain or excessive strain while performing it.
Is Walking OK for Hip Tendonitis?If you have tendonitis in your hip, taking short, casual walks is fine as long as you are not in pain. Tendonitis needs rest to heal, so keep it under 10 minutes and don’t overdo it. If you feel any pain, slow down, take shorter strides, and stop walking if the pain persists.
Is Walking OK for Hip Tendonitis?
If you have tendonitis in your hip, taking short, casual walks is fine as long as you are not in pain. Tendonitis needs rest to heal, so keep it under 10 minutes and don’t overdo it. If you feel any pain, slow down, take shorter strides, and stop walking if the pain persists.
Easy Stretches for Hip Pain
Standing Butt Squeeze
Dobrila Vignjevic / Getty Images
To do this exercise:
Isometric Hip Press
Charli Bandit / Getty Images
Pelvic Tilt With Marching
supersizer / Getty Images
Hip/Glute Bridges
LaylaBird / Getty Images
Hip Bridge Exercises for All Fitness Levels
Lying Lateral Leg Raises
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Scissors
Morsa Images / Getty Images
Lying Leg Circles
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Hip Flexor Stretch
Pro tip: Be sure to keep your abdominals engaged while you move forward to stretch your hip flexor.
How to Do Hip Abduction Exercises
Summary
If you have hip pain from tendonitis or trochanteric bursitis, exercises may help improve hip motion and strength and relieve pain. If you are in acute pain, check with your healthcare provider before starting this exercise program.
Once you have the green light to exercise, start slowly with simple exercises like the hip flexor stretch, pelvic tilt, and standing butt squeeze. As you gain strength, you can gradually add more exercises.
Stretching and strengthening your hip flexor muscles help to support your pelvis and prevent future hip pain. If these exercises are too painful, talk to your healthcare provider about physical therapy.
4 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.Frizziero A, Vittadini F, Pignataro A, et al.Conservative management of tendinopathies around hip.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016;6(3):281-292. doi:10.11138/mltj/2016.6.3.281Johns Hopkins Medicine.Hip problems.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Hip bursitis.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons: OrthoInfo.Exercise walking.
4 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.Frizziero A, Vittadini F, Pignataro A, et al.Conservative management of tendinopathies around hip.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016;6(3):281-292. doi:10.11138/mltj/2016.6.3.281Johns Hopkins Medicine.Hip problems.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Hip bursitis.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons: OrthoInfo.Exercise walking.
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.
Frizziero A, Vittadini F, Pignataro A, et al.Conservative management of tendinopathies around hip.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016;6(3):281-292. doi:10.11138/mltj/2016.6.3.281Johns Hopkins Medicine.Hip problems.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Hip bursitis.American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons: OrthoInfo.Exercise walking.
Frizziero A, Vittadini F, Pignataro A, et al.Conservative management of tendinopathies around hip.Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2016;6(3):281-292. doi:10.11138/mltj/2016.6.3.281
Johns Hopkins Medicine.Hip problems.
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.Hip bursitis.
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons: OrthoInfo.Exercise walking.
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