Our hip joint plays a main role in transmitting forces and body weight encountered during daily activities from axial skeleton through the lower extremities. By balancing forces over its entire range of motion, the hip joint acts as the stability essential to perform daily tasks including standing up straight, walking with a balanced and smooth gait, getting up from a chair, and lifting weights from a squatting position.
A weakened hip may cause surrounding muscle to instability of the joint and lead to hip overcompensate or overused injuries which affect the mechanics of walking, running, and climbing stairs. It can also affect the pain of multiple areas of the body.
What may cause by weaken hip?
- Early degeneration of hip or knee
- Osteoarthritis
- Walking imbalance or painful gait
- Poor posture
- Low back pain
- Sciatica
- Fracture
- Hip instability
- Muscle strain or tendinopathy
- Bursitis
What causes weak hips?
- Lack of exercises
- Sitting for long periods
- Post surgeries
- Recurrent trauma
Ways to bulletproof your hips
Here are some exercises video clips will guide you through!
A. Sit to stand
- Sit in a chair and lean forward.
- Activate your glutes muscles and stand up, while you stand up, knee should not go beyond toes.
- Sit down slowly back to the chair with glutes activation to slightly backward, then only bent your knee.
- Do 1-3 sets of 8-15 repetitions.
B. Seated marching
- Sit straight in a chair and lift knee alternately.
- When doing seated marching, reminder to maintain body upright and prevent of side shift of the body.
- Do 3-5 sets of 8-15 repetitions.
C. Pelvic bridging
- Lying on a firm surface (yoga map).
- Activate the core muscles slightly rotate pelvic backward on the yoga map.
- Activate glutes muscles and bring up the pelvis until body in a straight line.
- Hold for 10 seconds, and back to starting posture slow and control.
- Do 1-3 sets of 8-15 repetitions.
D. Single leg standing
- Stand with legs hip-width apart beside a stable object (can proceed with or without support).
- Lift up one leg until the knee is level with the hip and hold for 30 seconds, then slowly put down the legs.
- Try to maintain the pelvis in neutral position when lifting your leg.
- If feel imbalanced, hold the stable object to prevent fall.
Do 1-3 sets of 8-15 repetitions.
E. Clamshell exercises
- Lie on your side.
- Rotate your top leg up as high as you can, then pause for a moment.
- Lower to the starting position.
- Do 1–3 sets of 8–15 repetitions.
Prepared by
Jia Shin
Your Physio Sri Petaling