Hip Pain

Please remember the advice we give is general and not meant to be used as a substitute for professional medical or health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you want specific advice then please seek help from your doctor or local physio.

The purpose of this guide is to help you overcome any issues you have related to your hip. This may be hip pain, or other symptoms such as clicking, clunking or grinding sensations in the hip.

Causes of hip pain

Hip symptoms have various causes. You may have been told you have:

Osteoarthritis
Cartilage tear
Tendon problem (eg. tendonitis, tendinopathy)
Bursitis
Labral tear
Hip impingement
Lateral hip pain / greater trochanteric pain syndrome (GTPS)

Or you may just have unexplained pain around your hip.

What to do about hip pain/problems

Whatever the cause of your hip symptoms, it is important to find ways to keep being physically active. Continuing with the program is likely one of the best things you can do to help it.

Rest assured that exercise is safe and healthy for your hips, whatever problem you have. Even for “severe osteoarthritis with bone on bone” the research shows us that strength and fitness exercise is beneficial and safe.

The majority of cases of hip pain do not require any specific diagnoses or specific treatment to overcome. Most musculoskeletal pain gets better with time. And pain itself is rarely a sign of anything serious.

There are plenty of hip exercises in the program, meaning you probably don't need to add in any extra hip exercises to overcome this pain. Just keep going with the program as best you can.

In order to continue with the program, modify the exercises to make them tolerable. There is no right and wrong here, it will be personal for each individual.

When it comes to symptoms other than pain, such as clicking, clunking or grinding sensations in the hip, our approach should be the same. Much like with pain itself, these symptoms are infrequently a sign of anything serious. We encourage you to continue with the exercise program, modifying movements as needed.

If you are getting hip pain during walking then watch this video.

How to make the program exercises tolerable

The goal is to modify the exercises in order to make the tolerable, so that you can continue. The use of the word tolerable here is intentional. This doesn't mean the exercises have to be completely pain-free. Some pain with exercise is ok. It just has to be tolerable for you.

There are 3 general rules to follow when modifying exercises:

Reduce the weight that you are using
Reduce the range of movement
Vary the movement or find a similar alternative

Often, the squatting type exercises are the most problematic when it comes to hip pain. So check out this article to to learn how to modify squatting movements: How to modify squatting movements

If none of these modifications are working for you, and you find certain exercises are just too painful, then it’s okay to just skip those exercises for a while. Keep going with all the other exercises in the workouts as best you can. Then try to gradually reintroduce the exercise that was previously too painful, starting with the easiest possible version and slowly progressing.

Things to look out for...

There are some signs & symptoms to look out for that suggest further medical investigation is warranted. So if you have hip pain and any of the following, it's a good idea to speak to your doctor before continuing with exercise:

Constant/severe pain
Pain that is progressively getting worse
Pain during the night, especially if it wakes you up
Trauma (eg. a fall or injury to the hip)
Swelling/redness
Pins & needles or numbness

Summary

We hope you have found this guide helpful for overcoming your hip issues and giving you the confidence and know-how to continue with exercise.

If you want to take a more detailed look at hip osteoarthritis - click here to read our hip OA blog

If you want to take a more detailed look at Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome (pain on the outside of the hip) - click here to read our GTPS blog