Ever dealt with hip tightness while running? The front of the hip, groin, and sometimes even back side of the hip just seems to seize up half way through your run.
It rarely occurs immediately. It typically comes on after you’ve been running for a longer duration, doing bridges, or speed work.
Let me guess, you’ve probably tried the good ole 1/2 kneeling hip flexor stretch and even tried foam rolling, smashing it with a lacrosse ball, or even tried dumping ice on it.
It ALWAYS brings some relief with those temporary short lived modalities. However whenever you attempt a hard or longer run again, you’re back at square one.
Why is that?
When addressing the “tightness” with foam rollers, lacrosse ball, stretches, and ice, we are simply chasing and addressing SYMPTOMS and never actually addressing the ROOT CAUSE.
Tightness is a symptom and a sensation our bodies typically produce when a certain muscle is weak and fatigued (hence why we only experience this with typically harder exertion activities).
To address the root cause, improving hip flexor endurance is the key to making sure this “tightness” sensation does not come back in the future when we attempt these hard feats of activities again.
Here are 2 simple ways to improve hip flexor strength.
1) Seated Hip Flexor Raises
2) Standing Banded Hip Flexor Marches
These exercises should be completed at a rep range and intensity that is a HARD but doable effort. If it isn’t hard, your body will not adapt to the stressors and thus will not improve nor get stronger.
If you’ve made it all the way down this blog, I applaud you for having the patience to read through this information and hopefully it will make a difference in your future training!
If you’ve been dealing with hip pain for a while now, you NEED to get in contact with us to set up a free consult so we can learn more about your specific situation and get you on an individualized plan of care to finally get you back to your goals pain free.
What are you waiting for? Set up your complimentary call here!
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