Stop Hip Pain While Running

Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. Let's talk about running. So I absolutely love running. Anybody who has ever gotten the running bug knows how addictive it is. And it is very hard even when you're hurt or injured for you to want to stop running. But what do you do if you have pain and the front of your hip after you're done running, or even during your run, how do you get past that? Having hip pain, especially in the front is very, very common when you're running and honestly, it doesn't even matter if you're new to running or if you’ve been running for a long time, that kind of pain can happen basically whenever. I just wanted talk about this because I have met a wonderful woman, Sarah, who completely was in love with running.

Again, if you've been a runner, then you know that a lot of times that's your therapy.  Sarah was like, you cannot tell me that I am not allowed to run because that is just not okay. I have kids, I have a husband, I have a job and running is my Zen time. I can put on my earbuds and I go for a run. And when I come back, I am a normal human again. But for the last few weeks the doctor told me that I wasn't allowed to run. That is just not okay. I have to be able to get back to running. It’s killing me to not be able to run and the pain is bad, but it is not as bad as not being able to run. And I think that most people who’ve got the running bug can relate to Sarah's position. It is so hard to think about not running the idea that you're going to give up three weeks or four weeks worth of running.  You feel like you're going to lose all of the training that you've ever done in your life. Not to mention you're missing out on that peace of mind, the emotional release and just the calming effect that running has on you. It really becomes just part of who you are. You are a runner if  you've ever caught that bug. So when you have things that pop up like, front hip pain, every time you're trying to pull that knee up that progresses until after a while, you can't even lift it.  You're sort of almost dragging it so that you can take that next step forward. I just want to give you a shout out that there is hope. In the case of Sarah, she came in and she could run for like a mile or half a mile before the pain started, but once it started, she was basically hobbling the whole rest of the time.

It was really ruining her runs and she was willing to deal with that, but then she started having pain all the time.When she'd walk up the stairs, she had discomfort in the same spot  and it was progressively getting worse. She went to her doctor and the doctor told her to rest it for a while and try heat or ice whichever. Don't run for two weeks and see what happens. She took the doctor's advice and she went home, she didn't run for two weeks.

Then she was like, all right, my two weeks are up, I'm going out for a run. And it was almost worse. She couldn't even make it the half a mile that she was able to before the 2 week rest. 
Her hip was fine while walking around the house now, but it wasn't any better, it was almost worse when she tried running. She told me she felt a little defeated after that run.  She felt like there wasn’t a whole lot of hope for her at this point. Are you going to tell me that I can't run ever again? And I said, well, let's look and see what's happening. Then after we did the evaluation where we looked at how she was moving, checking her hip strength, hip flexibility, and overall balance. (There's a lot of things to look at) I found that she had hip flexor tendonitis but we were able to figure out the reason that she was having that hip pain. And we were able to adjust her training program.

We were able to strengthen her hips. We were able to strengthen her ankles. We were able to work on her balance a little bit and give her a little bit more of a robust training program to go along with her running program. And so now she's running five miles without any problem because it's not really the running, it was something that was out of balance. And rest is really good. It's nice to have a little rest, but ultimately rest is kind of a relative term. We rested the muscles that needed to be rested and we strengthened the ones that needed to be strengthened. She didn't have to truly take off running the whole time she was working with me. She was able to allow the muscle that needed to heal that time to heal while still feeling like she could get her workouts in.
I think we created a nice balance.  You still get your nice workout. You get  your Zen moments and you end up with no pain at the end. I just want to let people know that it is possible because I know anybody who's gotten the running bug, the idea of an injury taking you away from your running is absolutely devastating. 
There is hope even with hip pain that hurts every step that you take. You can get back to running without any limitations.

I hope that this information helps. If you have a runner that is struggling right now, please send them this video. If you want to contact me, I will leave my contact information below the video. I hope you're having a great day.

​Looking for more information about running check out:  To find out about runners knee 

Looking for more information about hip pain check out: To find out about leg length discrepancy 

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