Hip Pain Support

Hi. I'm Ashley Hoffman, and in this tutorial, we'll be talking about clients who have hip pain, whether that's due to tightness or weakness. And a lot of times hypermobility is a factor. We're too flex able, and we're not strong enough. So Katie's gonna be helping me today as I take her through some exercises and adaptations to really tackle the hip pain your client might come in with. She's gonna start lying on her back. So we'll start with actually strengthening the hip flexor.

She's lying flat hands can be behind her head as a little pillow. Her feet are flexed legs long, and I'm placing this band around a looped elastic band around both of her feet. So all she's doing is keeping one leg straight and long, and the opposite leg is gonna bend drawing her knee towards her chest. We've end lengthening back out. She's going again. We'll do five to 10 reps of this to really strengthen the hip flexor.

We tend to over stretch our hip flexors. They feel tight, and really it's a lot of like weakness, and we just need to create strength to create more stability through the pelvis, and then the pain, and the hips subsides. We'll do the other side just to even it out a little bit. So we'll just five here. She draws the knee and you wanted her to keep that foot lifted so that she's maintaining that resistance against in the highest position. So range of motion when there's no pain, And don't even worry about how much her pelvis does or doesn't move because it's all range of motion that she uses on a daily basis.

We squat down. We stand up. We get in the car. We reach for something. Our hips move all day long. We wanna build that strength.

Around that movement. And part of that is strengthening the front of the hip. She can also do this with a balance challenge. I'm gonna take your band. I'll have her stand up right at the front of the tower The band will go around her feet.

One and two, her hands can go behind her head or out to her side wherever she needs for balance. And she's going to just bring one knee up and down. Big balance challenge here. So clients can hold on to something, and now you're working against gravity and that band. So five to 10 on each side working that balance, but of course you can hold on. I'll take the band back and she's gonna go onto her stomach for a hamstring curl thing. You. So lying on her stomach hands can, forehead can rest onto her hands.

And I'm placing the band around her bent knees, 90 degrees feet flexed. So from here, she's gonna keep one leg bent as the opposite leg straightens. And I'm just helping keep the band a little bit, but usually it they like to stay and they like to move sometimes. But I don't mind keeping this a little resistance. So she's doing an isometric contraction through her left hamstring while her right leg is extending into that eccentric contraction. She'll go to the other leg just so we can see this nice strong isometric contraction through now the right leg.

This heel's staying to the ceiling right there. Yes. To create more resistance against the opposite leg straightening. So she'll keep that left leg straight now. And add the right leg lengthening out, and coming back up. And I think the pointed foot will work better here. Perfect. So now we've got the concentric contraction of the hamstring.

We're working isometric, eccentric while it's lengthening and concentric while it's shortening. And hamstring strength is a big part as well as glute inner thigh and front of the hip strength for stability through the pelvis and hips and keeping our clients pain free. I'll take this from you now. You can push back to a child's pose. Anytime they've been on their stomach, it's always nice for a client to get a little.

Stretch for their low back. She's gonna lie on to her right side for a side leg spring. So now we'll continue working the outer hip. She's got her right hand pressing into the tower bar to create stability. So a little closer can really push into it. And she's about in the middle of the mat. Bottom leg is forward.

I'm gonna give her a side leg spring. A little more forward there. Yes. So she has that balance. We're working the gluteus meatiest and gluteus minimus as well as the inner thigh. So she'll bend her knee.

I'm giving her this leg spring, and I have it clipped from the front to create more work, more instability that she has to then stabilize through. So we're gonna first just get this length She's reaching that left leg is long or longer than the right leg, and that creates length on both sides of the waist. She kicks the leg forward. She's using her left hand for stability and she kicks the leg back avoiding lifting the leg. So the spring's trying to pull it up while she's creating length in her low back. So using those small little glute muscles underneath the gluteus maximus, your gluteus medius and minimus to create strength and using both sides of the waist, your QL working while it's elongated. So working through that tight low back spot, the hip flexors come through and connect.

Your quadratus lumborum is holding, but we're working it long here so you can keep that stability and strength and length in the hips. So eight times here, kicking front and back, and then she's gonna go leg over leg for some circles. Well, maybe a tiny bit of external rotation, then we get more into the gluteus maximus. And she's gonna do fast sharp circles eight times in one direction and look how nice and strong and stable she is so we can really cue pushing that hand into the stable bar. Using the bottom hand, but maintaining all that length. And then she reverses for eight, seven. Six, she's pushing that bottom leg down, which again is working the bottom side of the body.

Now we'll do some high kicks working the inner thigh. The spring is helping to bring her leg up. She's an external rotation, so her glutes working. But then her inner thigh, her adductors bring that leg back down. She lets the spring pull up and she squeezes back heel to heel to really work into the inner thighs.

We tend to kind of neglect our inner thighs. It's a huge part of pelvic stability and I just feel like It's not always a priority as much as outer hip, but it really is a huge part of creating more strength and stability. Again, hip flexors too. We like to work the glutes. We like to work the hamstrings, but we need the front and the inner hip as well. So eight to 10 of these kicks. I'll have her bend her knee.

I'm gonna take this off. Thank you so much. And we're gonna continue inner thigh work on the reformer. Now we'll use the reformer for a few more inner thighs strengtheners because we really want those adductors to be part of that pelvic stability, hip stability. So a variation on frog, Katie's going to lie down.

I have two springs, two reds, so wherever you typically do your frog at exercise. I'm helping her bring her feet into the straps and she'll settle into her frog position heels together, toes and knees a little apart, hips on to the mouth. I'll have her do three frogs just to see where her body is in space. Her hips and ribs, staying heavy on the mat as her legs move. So she's got that natural curve of her low back already working stability here and keeping the heels together creates that inner thigh connect Now she'll hold and going into this variation.

She'll open her legs as wide as she can. From there, she's gonna bend her knees and bring her heels back together. She pushes out to the frogs to the high diagonal, opening the legs. And from that inner thigh stretch, bringing the heels together, little narrower knees as you come back in. Yes. And pushing away.

She can find that stretch and then from the stretch bring it back in. After three to five, we reverse. So this is when she's gonna bend back in. Opening the legs into the stretch all the way. Now from that stretch coming in to the heels together and back into the frog. So when she opens, she's in this hamstring all the way open. And from there, inner thighs and hamstrings are doing that work from their eccentric contraction, bending in. Let's do that two more times.

The legs open all the way. And then she's using those deep muscles to pull together. One more time. Excellent work. And from the inner thigh stretch, they come together and bend in.

We'll do a standing inner thigh stretch so we can take these off and carefully, yeah, find the foot bar and coming off the reformer. I'll change her to one spring as she comes around to stand Her midline will be in line with the edge of the headrest, but you can gauge after the first rep or two where your body needs to be. I have her on one yellow spring, a yellow or a blue is appropriate. And she's bringing her left heel against the shoulder rest. Some external rotation is welcome, and then she's pretty close to the reformer, hands on the hips. Many clients will need a a bar for balance here, and that's totally acceptable.

We're just doing this inner thigh drag. She's pulling her heel towards her opposite leg and then slowly resisting out. So lots of work happening on this standing side inner thigh to stabilize and this inner thigh and outer hip of the working leg. Slowly resisting it out. We can do five to 10 of these on each side.

So balance challenge, inner thigh challenge, inner pelvic floor connection by bringing those legs towards each other and getting tall. Just gonna shift a little weight back. I'm just giving her extra things to think about, pull the abs back here, the shoulders back. Great. She's drawing that heel into the midline. And then resisting back out all the outer hip work, but especially that inner thigh connection into the midline, into the pelvic floor.

And as you she comes back out, you might notice it looks a little bit like going upside on the high chair So translating these exercises into different planes and different areas of how high off the ground, you come to really create strength in a safe and stable way. Great. You can bring your foot down after this next one. You bring it all the way out. And now I'm gonna have her do an inner thigh slide. So she's coming around to the front, and I've got these towels for her.

Katie will come down and bring her knees onto these towels and her forearms onto the ground. Elbows are under the shoulders, and knees are under the hips. And she's opening her legs, knees going outside of the hip bones as far, but halfway that you think you wanna go. Like, let's rein it in, and then she draws those knees together. Should I need to make an adjustment, make sure those towels are gliding. So sliders, towels, anything that will move a long blanket. And we're working this inner thigh kind of a side split position but much closer to the ground and she doesn't have to be upright standing on the reformer. Again, all about adductors, strengthening those adductors.

Wanna make sure her weight's not moving forward. When the inner thighs are weak, we tend to kinda shift forward to do the work. So we're keeping those shoulders over the elbows. Now you can go a little further to wherever she knows she's gonna be able to come back and slow drag. Lots of information for her. Which leg is working harder, if she's leaning more to one side or the other, and she can really work to connect deeper and balance herself out because she gets all that information.

Last one here. So five to 10 reps, again, pain free, enough padding to support the knees and you can come back into your hips and join me up here. So all of these are strengthening inner thighs, hamstrings, outer hip, hip flexor, pelvic floor, low abdominals, working together to create more stability in the pelvis, which in turn creates less pain in the hips no matter if what your client is dealing with that causes that hip pain, we want to build strength all around it.