Your hips work hard. They support much of your body weight and help you move you from one place to another all day long. If your hips hurt, the pain and discomfort can impact your day in a pretty big way, making it harder to get around and do the activities you enjoy.

A common cause of hip pain that can affect anyone is hip impingement. If hip impingement is contributing to your achy hip, physical therapy exercises can help with your symptoms and may prevent future problems. Read on to learn more about how to manage your pain, especially with movement and exercise therapy. 

What is Hip Impingement?

The hip is one of the largest joints in your body, and it’s a ball-and-socket joint. The ball part is the spherical top of your femur, the long thigh bone. The socket is a cup-like indentation on the lower portion of your pelvis called the acetabulum. The labrum, which is made up of cartilage, lines the rim of the acetabulum. “The labrum serves to stabilize the joint, acting as a little suction cup to help the ball stay in the socket,” says Keesha Vaughn, PT, DPT, a physical therapist at Hinge Health.

Hip impingement, technically called femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), occurs “when you have a bony overgrowth in the hip,” says Dr. Vaughn. “It can be on the femur side or the pelvis side, or you could have a combination of both.” The overgrowth prevents the joint from gliding as smoothly as it usually does. “So as you do different activities, the labrum can get pinched and cause pain or discomfort,” says Dr. Vaughn.

It’s unclear why hip impingement occurs. Some people may be born with slight variations in the head of their femur, or the acetabulum that can create friction. It’s also possible that bony growths may develop due to repetitive activities like sports that require a lot of hip twisting or squatting. A bony overgrowth may be present all or most of your life, or it may develop later in life, possibly due to a change in activity or even an injury. Regardless, it doesn’t cause pain for everyone. 

If you do experience pain from hip impingement, it’s usually felt in the groin or the front of the thigh and occurs most often when sitting, climbing stairs, or bending down. “Often, standing and walking feel fine,” says Dr. Vaughn. “It’s when the hip is in a flexed position, like sitting, where you get the bones pinching on the labrum.” Sometimes, it feels like a tightness or dull ache, but other times, it can be sharp and shooting sensation depending on the activity you’re doing.

How Exercise Helps Hip Impingement

Many people assume that hip pain means they should take it easy and rest to give their hip time to heal. This is actually the opposite of what you want to do. Being too sedentary can actually do more harm than moving, even if you do have some discomfort with certain activities. 

Exercise won’t change the structure of your hip joint to correct the impingement, but by strengthening the muscles that surround your hips, you can create a solid foundation to support your hip joints. This is what helps to ease pain and discomfort while improving your hip mobility. 

These exercises recommended by Hinge Health physical therapists strengthen the muscles in your back, abdomen, hips, and buttocks. While they aren’t likely to provide immediate pain relief, they can ease symptoms over time and support overall hip health. “Having strength in and around your hips helps support your hip joints so you become more resilient to activities that tend to be aggravating to your hip impingement, like climbing stairs,” says Dr. Vaughn.