Hip Pain To Get Back To Running

Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. Were you diagnosed with hip arthritis and you still wanna run? This is a great video for you. We're gonna talk about Luke and how Luke was given a diagnosis of hip arthritis, but his doctors told him that not only should he stop running now, but he was gonna need a hip replacement in the near future. And that is not happening as of right now. So we're gonna talk about the things that make hip arthritis happen.  What makes it better? What makes it worse and how you have a lot more control than maybe the last doctor visit, let you believe. So let's get started. So Luke had been running his whole life. He was in his fifties. That was his thing. All runners we just like to run, everything else is just filler space.

So even though Luke liked to, he did go to the gym once in a while to lift weights and practice lunges and squats and things. He was running four to five days a week. And he'd been doing that for years. As an avid runner, he knew that he needed to keep up his overall physicality. So he was getting weekly massages, he was doing a lot of the things that he knew he needed to do, because of course he doesn't like to stretch, hence the massages. So he was doing a lot of the things that he absolutely thought he should be. He was still lifting weights. He was getting massages, but over time, his right hip really started to bother him. It wasn't just, you know, at the end of the run, in fact, he kept running because it would ache in the morning.

When he got up and moved around for a little bit, it would go away and then he would run. For the most part, it was okay, but it was progressively getting worse into where it was affecting. Not only was it taking longer to get over in the mornings before he didn't have any pain, but it was bothering him when he got up and down from chairs. It was if he had to sit for very long, so very long being 30 minutes, he was like, it starts to get really achy. So I have to stand up and walk around. Then it was getting really achy at night too, to the point where he was taking medication every day, which he didn't like. Which was when he made it straight to the doctor.
The moment it was really affecting his runs and he wasn't able to run as fast or as often as he wanted to. So when he went and saw the doctor, the doctor did x-rays and came out that he had arthritis and the doctor was like, “Dude, this is so bad that, you're gonna need a hip replacement in the next couple years. And especially if you keep running, if you stop running, you may be able to make it last a little bit longer. But as it is right now, the arthritis in your hip is pretty severe.” And so Luke was devastated. So, as anybody would be right, you just got told that your favorite pastime, your favorite exercise, the thing that makes you feel young, the thing that helps you clear your mind is now bad for you in some way.

So he went home and pondered and did a lot of Google searches and he decided he was gonna back off a little bit from his workouts and runs, and he was gonna concentrate on working out, which helped a little bit. So he went to the gym, he started doing squats and lunges more often. He tried to do some stretches. Even though he doesn't like to stretch, all of those things were very good and they did help a little bit, but every time he tried to run, everything got kicked back up. So he was starting to believe it.

He went and bought new shoes. He started doing massages more than once a week. He was really trying to do all these things and there was little gains, but nothing lasting. He ended up going back and asking for a cortisone shot just to see if that would help. They did give him the cortisone shot. It did less than nothing. It made his pain worse, which was absolutely devastating. So that was the entire history that he gave me when he called my office and I was like, “Wow, that's a lot. You've been doing so many good things for yourself. You really took initiative to figure out what the actual problem was. That's amazing.”  Which is good, you know, what helps you and what doesn't, that's valuable information. So when we came in, we were able to do the movement screen and see what was actually going on with his hip.
Now, I don't mean this to make fun of all guys but his flexibility was horrible and flexibility is so important. This is what I explained to Luke, having a little flexibility deficit, that's just normal life. He couldn't even touch his knees barely, so when he stood up to bend forward, it wasn't quite that bad, but it was really close. If your hips are that stiff, then there's a lot of compression that happens at your hip joint and that much compression causes a grinding, which is where the arthritis is coming from. So one of the reasons, especially as we get older, why flexibility is so important is that it helps maintain the joint space that you need so that every joint moves correctly and they don't wear down as quickly.

If you're only rubbing on a short amount of space inside of a joint, that area's gonna rub down a lot faster, right? It's gonna wear down. If you have more of an area that you're working with, then it takes a lot longer for that to happen. The other thing, when you're talking about the length of your muscles, if the two muscles or if the muscle is really short and it's bringing those bones really close together, not only do you have a limited space, it's right up against their grinding on a little space.

So flexibility is key. Another thing that isn't really talked about in that same sense is that if you can only move your arm, let's say your arm only moves just under shoulder length, right? Well, that's a problem because of the things that I just mentioned, but it also means that you can only be strong from the hip to shoulder length. If that's all that you're able to move, then you're only able to be strong from there to there, which if you're requiring your arm to make it all the way up, not having the strength that rest of the way is a big issue.

So how that plays into running is when you are trying to lift your knee and then push the ground away, lift your knee and push the ground away. If your hips are really stiff, not only is that altering how you're running, because it limits the amount of range your knee can lift, but it also means you don't have that strength to really pull up and push down.

That also translates to you, don't have the strength to absorb the impact from the ground. That it doesn't just hit your bones, your muscles are your shock absorbers. So if the muscles aren't strong, they can absorb the impact and your bones take all of that impact, which was really what was happening with Luke. 

So what we did is we worked on flexibility and increasing his strength through a whole range of motions. We fixed a lot of how he was doing squats, how he was doing lunges, so that it would help him increase his overall strength and flexibility.

Now he is able to land quietly. He's able to fully absorb that shock, and he doesn't have hip pain at all, despite having x-rays and imaging that say that he has severe arthritis, he has no pain. He is back running his long 10Ks and running four days a week. (Because of me, you know, we got lectures here.) He has added a regular routine of strength training and flexibility training so that he can keep all of this progress and he can keep running as long as he desires, he wants to run. 

So if this is the type of care that you're looking for, if you're tired of being told that you're just too old or that your joints are just not meant to enjoy running for long periods or at a certain age, then I have a few options for you to come and meet me and make sure that we're a good fit.

The first one is a discovery visit. And that's where we get to sit down and talk about your goals, maybe a little bit of your health history and see if I'm able to help you get to your desired goal, right. To make sure I'm the right fit for you. 

The other one is a full body diagnostic, if you really just maybe want somebody to look at your running mechanics or what's happening with your squat, or you have a very specific question about a motion, I offer a full body diagnostic. That goes a little bit more in depth into like a specific movement and see if I'm the right fit to help you, correct whatever it is going on to get you back to the active lifestyle that you're looking for. So I hope that this information helps you, and I hope you're having a wonderful day.

If you're looking for more posts like this one, click the links below
​what-should-i-do-to-avoid-a-hip-replacement.htmli
stop-hip-pain-while-running.html
​were-you-just-told-your-joint-pain-is-arthritis-prescribed-anti-inflammatories-then-told-to-stop-doing-your-favorite-activity.html

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