Why YOU Need Hip Strength

Why is Hip Strength Important?

Have you ever wondered why you have to do glute exercises for knee problems? Or why you feel unstable when downhill skiing, even though you have quads of steel? The answer may be in your hips.

Many common injuries throughout the body can be linked to strength deficits at the hips. Our hip muscles provide a strong foundation for our core and legs. If these muscles are not as strong as they should be, the body ends up compensating over time, which can cause repetitive stress injuries up or down the chain, such as tendonitis.

Keeping the hip muscles strong allows for a more stable hip joint, just like strengthening your rotator cuff muscles provides stability for your shoulder. Functionally, a stable hip joint provides support for the rest of your leg while walking, running, or standing on one leg (to name a few examples).

Weak Hip Muscles Lead to Pain

A weak hip can cause the knee to move in a less efficient way and place extra stress on passive structures such as the body joint and ligaments. Over time, this can cause incomplete movement mechanics and increases that person’s risk of injury and pain.

Everything is Connected

Oftentimes when we see a knee or ankle patient in the clinic, they tend to have weakness or poor coordination up the stream in the hips. Everything truly is connected.

Let’s take a common patient we often see in the clinic. A runner, who does not do any strength training, runs about 4-5x a week. They come in to PT for knee pain and after a thorough examination, we find that their quads might be super strong, but the glutes are so weak that they are barely able to do a single leg bridge!

We get them started on a strength training program, addressing those weak glutes and any other imbalances we might find and after some weeks, that knee pain they experienced with every run is now gone.

Strengthen Your Hips for Long Term Success

Stay on top of it and don’t wait for an injury to happen. Include some glute strengthening into your regimen. I promise it won’t hurt, but it might kick your butt ;) Sorry, I had to.

Happy fall everybody, let’s get those glutes ready for ski season!