Hip Pain – 5 Common Workout Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Hip pain can be very disrupting to your everyday life. Whether it’s osteoarthritis you’re dealing with or a simple tendon injury, hip pain drastically brings down your performance in your routine. Hip pain is one of the most common problems that affect young athletes and senior citizens. Of course, exercise will strengthen your joints, improve blood flow to your hips. Sometimes it becomes over-the-top and can be harming your hips rather than making them strong. Hip pain after exercise is not good news. Some amount of soreness could be your muscles being tired, but a pain in the joint could be an alarming issue that needs immediate attention. If your hips are in pain after strenuous physical activity, then you need to take it down a notch! Whether you are a professional athlete or someone who wants to benefit from physical activity, here are 5 common workout mistakes that can mess up your hips big time.

Mistake 1 – Not Warming up

One of the most common mistakes, people new to the gym or any other type of physical activity is not warming up properly. Your hip consists of 4 different muscles psoas major, iliacus, rectus femoris, and sartorius. All of these muscles get activated when you work out. A proper warmup to gear up these muscles will prevent you from straining. When you do multi-joint movements like a squat or a basic lunge, multiple muscles are involved in it. It’s possible your hip takes over all the work and ends up possibly being stretched excessively, giving you hip pain. It may -over time- lead to a tear or a snap in your hips resulting in injured tendons or torn muscles. 

The fix :

• Always start with low-intensity cardio that helps maximize blood flow to your muscles.
•  Remember to add a few bodyweight exercises to your warm-up routine.
•  Be mindful and consistent of the exercise patterns you do.

Mistake 2 – Overtraining Hip Muscles

Everybody likes a good workout once or twice, but overtraining and busting all your juice every day is not a good idea for a sustainable workout routine. If you want a consistent, injury-free workout you have to be careful in what you do. Training movements or exercises that drain power from hip muscles need to be intermittent. Let’s say your physical activity is Badminton, which uses torso rotation significantly. Overtraining without adequate rest can lead to your hip and back muscles being sore for the next day. It’s only obvious that your muscles weren’t ready yet for the next session. Cases like these often result in tendon or muscle strains that put you out of your routine for a painful amount of time causing hip pain.

The fix :

• Having a good workout plan that allows sufficient rest for hip muscles.
• Hit only 70-80 per cent of your maximum efficiency if you’re only building up for a casual physical activity.
• Make sure to take breaks if you had an intense routine.
• Talk to your muscles, you can only understand your body.

Mistake 3 – Pushing through The Pain

A lot of people take pushing through the pain very seriously and ignore very crucial pain symptoms. What’s the point of working out, if you don’t have healthy hips? Workout can cause some amount of soreness, but a high pitched joint pain or discomfort is not a plaything. If a specific workout is flaring up your hip pain, it’s wise to avoid it till your hip heals completely. Pushing through injury can only worsen the seriousness of your pain and put you on a long road to recovery. And if you want to be consistent and make progress with your workout, let your muscles heal and take a break from your serious workout regime.

The fix :

• Discard movements/ exercises that flare up your hip pain.
• Instead add a few other simple exercises that help relieve your pain.
• Our body differs from individual to individual on multiple levels. Pick a workout that aligns well with your body composition and stick to it.
• Hydrate yourself, your hip muscles like any other muscles are 79% water.

Mistake 4 – Ignoring Stretches

Even acute Hip pain is proven to be fully cured with appropriate stretches. While dealing with a hip injury, add some hip flexor stretches that improve your mobility. Always remember the more your joints are flexible, the less likely you’re gonna get injured. Stretches help alleviate the stress on your tendons and loosen your muscles from stiffness. Doing stretches after your workout routine every day will help you develop bulletproof hip joints over time. While you’re starting, you may have poor mobility. But that’s completely fine! Over time, your mobility will improve and you can make steady progress while kicking off hip pain.

The fix :

• Start from basic stretches and work your way up.
• Even better, you can consider a 10-20 minute yoga routine that can improve your mobility and build better mind-muscle connection.

Mistake 5 – Not Treating Injuries

How many times have you let your injuries undealt? For someone who’s actively involved in a strenuous physical routine, it could be many times. In most cases, immediate action against injuries can help you heal better than ignoring them. Following a RICE routine (Rest, ice, compression and elevation) could do wonders. One can also use instant pain relievers to soothe the damaged muscles and get relief from sudden hip pain. Untreated injuries often lead up to something big and we don’t want that. If you want to make a healthy lifestyle out of your exercise, take actions against injuries -however small it might be and see yourself make better progress.

The fix :

• Pay attention to pain areas and treat them with rice & heat appropriately.
• Opt for massages and hot water baths that relaxes muscle strains.
• Use fast-relief products to soothe your muscles, immediately after a flare-up.

Parting Shot

Hip muscles act like an anchor, helping your feet stay on land and holding your spine intact in the spinal erectors. Any injury to Hip muscles should never be ignored or untreated. If your hip pain needs immediate action, ayurvedic herbal oils and sprays can provide immediate and long term benefits. Hip pain can become a serious concern if it accompanies other major symptoms, during which you have to consider visiting a chiropractor or an orthopedician.

For a healthy recovery process, always stick to the above points and have a healthy diet. A combination of all these will ensure your hip pain is treated for good.