Doctors, WebMD, and so many other health-related websites will tell you to rest, use ice, and take NSAIDs to help your hip impingement. We disagree. A hip impingement can be fixed through increased body-awareness and alignment. And if you’re considering surgery for a hip impingement, know that surgery does not fix the root cause, which is often the misalignment of your pelvis and your thigh bone.
If you want to learn how to fix your hip impingement naturally without surgery (and by naturally we don’t mean by taking herbs you guys) keep reading.
What Is Hip Impingement?
Hip impingement is a misaligned position of the hip that causes the femur bone to collide with the hip socket, and compress the hip labrum which is in between the two. Repeated over and over for hundreds to millions of repetitions can cause pin-point predictable wear and tear to the hip joint, which leads to labral tears, FAI, Cam & Pincer, osteoarthritis and a hip replacement - if not addressed.
Cause of Hip Impingement
Interesting research and MoveU’s Founder Dr. Mike’s own experience working with 15,000 patients indicate that those with hip impingement have an extra 5 degrees of anterior tilt - which is about 33% more than normal hip tilt. Several studies also support Dr. Mike’s data This can be fixed through specific alignment and strength exercises that you will find in our MoveU app.
Signs You Might Have a Hip Impingement
You may have a hip impingement if you feel any of the following:
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Pinpoint hip pain near the groin
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Low back pain when standing and walking
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Hip pain with deep squatting
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Painful and limited hip flexion and internal rotation
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Groin or hip pain when rotating the hip
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Hip stiffness
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Clicking, catching or locking of the joint
Should You Consider Surgery for a Hip Impingement?
There has been a 600% increase in hip replacement operations over the last decade, yet there is little if no evidence to back up these procedures - and researchers are urging the medical community "Hey, guys...slow down!" From Dr. Mike’s experience, he has yet to meet someone who has had this operation that is satisfied with the results years after the procedure - particularly since the operation only addresses the symptoms of the issue and not the root cause. Imagine getting major surgery and finding out it didn’t actually help your hip impingement!
Will Exercise Fix a Hip Impingement?
Understand that exercise is not going to fix your hip impingement, so stop counting sets and repetitions while you sing along with AC/DC. The following exercises we recommend below, if performed mindfully, will help you gain awareness of your alignment so you can learn how your hip and femurs need to be aligned in order to move through their ranges of motion without impinging. The exercises below are training exercises for life!
How to Fix a Hip Impingement Without Surgery
The realignment path to an un-impinged hips looks like this:
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Reduce the excessive curve from your lower back.
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Engage in deep core breathing training exercises.
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Increase the outward rotation and abduction strength of your hips
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Integrate all of these into bending, squatting, and lifting.
After, you will want to learn the following:
Reduce the excessive curve from the upper back by learning how to scapula scoop (realign your scapulas) and re-extend the upper thoracic spine (fix yo kyphosis)
Next, you will want to reduce the internal rotation misalignment in your femur by doing glute max exercises to outwardly rotate the hip, and glute medius exercises to prevent a hip drop and abduct the hips.
Think of this path as progressive, when you reduce the low back curve through core activation and strength, then you move to learning to use and strengthen your glute max and glute medius to further reduce your pelvic tilt, and also better align the hip in the socket. The knowledge and awareness you gain, you then carry it over to the next area until you are strong and aware from your feet to your neck! Eventually, you will be able to easily maintain awareness and alignment to all joints in the body for pain free movement with ease.
How to Get Started on Fixing Your Hip Impingement
We created a detailed path on how to fix a hip impingement inside our MoveU membership. You’ll begin with the Back and Core program, then move to the Hips and Glutes Program or the Shoulders and Arms program, then move to Knee/Ankle/Foot Program. We created these programs to be the only thing that you need to do to fix your hip impingement and live your life pain free.
