A lot of runners, hikers, cyclists, and walkers will experience high hamstring, IT Band, or other hip pain in their lives. With 60% of runners experiencing high hamstring pain, and 50% of cyclists and 20% of runners experiencing IT Band pain, hip pain is one of the most common injuries/complaints among this active group. The good news is that with a little bit of prevention/intervention work, a lot of those aches and pains can be avoided.

The hip is a ball and socket joint which gives it its ability to move in a large variety of ways. The six motions of the hip are: external rotation, internal rotation, abduction (leg moving away from center), adduction (leg moving towards center), flexion, and extension. Tension and limited range of motion in the hip (and the whole body) can only be caused by 2 things – mechanical tension (structure limitation) or neural tension. Most of our day-to-day mobility restrictions are cause by the latter.

When expanding space in the hip capsule, rotation should be addressed over any linear limitations. Without the establishment of good rotation, both internal and external, other ranges such as flexion and extension will never improve. Good range AND control of both of these rotations should be the primary goal of anyone experience hip tension.

Below are a few exercises to help. When doing these exercises, there should be no pain. You should feel stretch in the long tissue (the part your are lengthening), but you should never feel restriction or pinching in the closed angle (where the body is shortening or folding). There should also not be pain in other joints like the spine and/or knees.

While both rotations should be explored, if you are primarily experiencing hamstring pain, you would want to focus on your hip internal rotation and control. If you are experiencing more IT Band symptoms, you should focus more on the external rotation movements.

First, explore your hip range with this exercise:

Next, let’s work on hip external rotation and hip extension first.

Now let’s work on hip internal rotation.

And then put it all together with hip CARs. This exercise can be done daily on its own as a warm up for a run.

Have questions? Reach out at Brenna@KoaFitUSA.com.