If you have hip pain while walking or running, it might be due to a number of factors. Often the pain is felt just at the point of the hip, however it can also extend into the leg or low back. The pain might be sharp and extreme, or it may be referred to as throbbing and widespread. It may be felt on one side or both sides. Extended walking can make it feel even worse.
Possible Causes of Hip Pain When Walking and Running
1. Hip joint problems
Pain in the front of the joint, where the leg connects to the trunk, is normally caused by hip joint problems. The most common causes include hip flexor tendinitis or strain, stress fracture and osteoarthritis. Less typically, a labral tear (cartilage) may cause pain during walking and running.
Hip flexors are a group of muscles that move the thigh forward and up. Strains (pulls) are caused by backwards slippage of the foot. This might occur with one huge slip or recurring small slips while operating on a slick surface, such as snow. Stretching the hip flexors is challenging. Lie on your back on the edge of a table or high bed and drop the outdoors leg off the edge. Lunging with the back leg totally extended will also extend the hip flexors. A simple method to strengthen the hip flexors is to carry out leg lifts. Leg weights or use of a sports cord will add resistance. To maximize strength throughout the hip, work leg raises in each instructions– back, forward, in and out.
2. Tendinitis
Tendinitis is usually due to increased training– increased mileage, speed work or hill work. Treatment includes decreasing training, ice, strengthening and extending. How much decline is based on the severity of the symptoms. If there is pain with walking, cross-train in a swimming pool. Cycling, rowing makers, stairmasters and elliptical fitness instructors may be used if they do not cause pain. In less severe cases, cut down on mileage by 25-50 percent and get rid of speed and hill work.
Pressures and tendinitis of the top of the hamstrings cause pain in the lower buttocks (the bone that you rest on) and the top of the back of the thigh. Treatment is the same as that used for hip flexor problems. Hamstring stretching and strengthening, particularly in reverse leg raises, are necessary. Deep tissue massage might be advantageous. This is a hard problem that takes a long time to deal with.
3. Trochanteric bursitis
Pain on the exterior of the hip is most typically due to greater trochanteric bursitis. The thigh bone juts outside at the base of the neck (links ball to the thigh; site of hip stress fractures); this protrusion is the higher trochanter. A lubricating sac (bursa) overlies the boney protrusion, so that the surrounding muscles do not rub straight on the bone. The leading region of the iliotibial (IT) band, called the tensor fascia lata, is commonly associated with greater trochanteric bursitis.
Treatment consists of extending and strengthening the IT band, hip abductors and gluteal muscles (see exercises for the IT band and piriformis syndrome). Apply ice to the painful area for 15 minutes three to 4 times per day. Prevent working on banked surface areas. A cortisone injection might be useful. Severe or worsening pain needs to raise suspicion for a stress fracture.
4. Strain of the adductor muscles
Pain along the within the hip might be due tendinitis or strain of the adductor muscles. Adductors pull the leg inward as it is moving forward; the faster the movement, the higher the degree of adduction (footprints of a runner are practically file as opposed to the side-by-side footprints of a walker). Side lunges will stretch these muscles and inward leg raises will enhance the adductors, according to iytmed.com. Treatment is otherwise the like the other muscle injuries.
Pain when running in the inner and often the front of the hip can be caused by osteitis pubis, sports hernias, infections and hernias (gone over in previous posts), or by pubic stress fractures and osteoarthritis.
Persistent or getting worse hip pain warrants a visit to your health care service provider and possibly a sports medicine specialist. Some problems, especially hip stress fractures, are commonly misdiagnosed due to the complicated discussion of symptoms. A thorough assessment is necessary and typically consists of X-rays and other studies (MRI, bone scan). Similar to all injuries, the absence of pain does not mean that is well. Strength and versatility deficits should be resolved to allow a healthy return to running.
