The Fix: My Hip Injury

For this blog, I wanted to write about the second part regarding my hip journey. Last week, I wrote about how I had an injury, so this week I decided to write about how I began to heal my hip injury.

I developed really severe sharp pains in my hip a year ago around this time. I was not surprised to have a hip injury and I would love to make this a cautionary tale for  all of the dancers, cheerleaders, gymnasts, yogis, etc.  I want to  warn them about the importance of strength training. Symmetrical strength training is necessary to protect your joints and centrate them.

How I Rehabilitated My Hips

When I started to rehabilitate myself, I started with a lot of core work.  I tried to take more of a whole body approach rather than just concentrating on my hips. If there is pain in one area, you don’t necessarily treat that painful part. Rubbing any muscle in my hip was not going to fix the problem that I had. I did not really do any myofascial release on the hip where it hurt, which is right into the front, but I did myofascial release on my glutes and adductors (inner thigh/groin) to increase the blood flow. I also did release work on my pelvic floor because another area that is often tied into how our hip centrates and how our hip works is our pelvic floor.

I am prone to ligament laxity because of being a yogi, a dancer, a cheerleader, and having two kids. My pelvic floor was also put to quite a test after giving birth to my two kids and most recently my 10 pound plus son. 

Keeping all these in mind, I did not start with stretching because it was a sharp pain. I do not recommend that people stretch into a sharpness like that. I started with working on my adductors, which are the inner thighs. They are connected to my hip into the pelvis and out onto the leg bone or your femur. If those two points shorten, they will draw the femur closer to the midline. Think of that as a way to center the ball of the femur into the joint.

There are a ton of muscles attaching in and around the glute-hip region that go from the tailbone to the femur. I focused on some glute work because of a phenomenon that happens to a lot of moms.. Sometimes, when you have a kid, your center of gravity shifts as  your belly is getting bigger and you are clenching your glutes to stop yourself from falling forward. That clenching does not make you strong because it restricts  blood flow and can actually make your glutes atrophy.  I had just had my son in 2019 before my injury.  I might have still been clenching my glutes a lot after giving birth because of stress, leaning over patients all day, and habit. My glutes weren’t firing how I wanted them to and that is a recipe for improper hip joint support. 

To help with my hip injury, I used coregeous balls to increase the blood flow and get that area woken back up. After I had warmed up the area with the coregeous ball to bring awareness to that area, I was able to recruit it before doing further exercises.

I also did things like lunges, deadlifts, and squats.   I used my vibration plate. If you’ve been in my office, we have a Hypervibe vibration plate. I stand on it and do a variety of different lunges at different angles and at the same time I was working on my balance and proprioception in my feet. I do these exercises barefoot because I wanted the most sensation from my feet so as to get lots of good input into my brain.

Some other things that I did and do for my hip and its continued health are  breath work and pelvic floor relaxation.  I use the coregeous ball and tune-up balls to work on the pelvic floor release. With the tune-up balls, which are like the size of tennis balls, I release the sacrotuberous ligament. This ligament goes from the bone you sit on to your tail bone area on both sides. You can do the exercises on a wall where you scoot up and down against the wall or you can do it seated whichever is easier for you. For the coregeous ball, I sit on it to bring awareness to the pelvic floor to try to get it fully relaxed. Remember that when you are having sharp, excruciating pain, it puts you in fight or flight mode. It is very difficult to be relaxed and able to restore yourself when you are in excruciating pain.  Doing the breath work helps to down regulate the nervous system and get yourself to relax. You can’t fully heal if you cannot relax. 

My hip did not hurt at all when I was neutral. That was wonderful because I could be totally pain-free if I chose to walk in a very parallel kind of way all the time. However, I like to do things like yoga, not having to kneel at the head of my table to treat patients, and more.  I was very motivated to fix the problem.

One thing that I found on myself that was dysfunctional and I was not aware of was my adductors (inner thigh/groin).   I did release work on them and then activated them.  I did some strengthening like Copenhagen planks, which is on your side and using your inner thigh to support yourself. I was floored at how weak I was at this.  Surprisingly, my right adductor was way weaker than my left. The left was my painful side. This is a good example that the area of dysfunction is not always the site that is painful. I started small to recruit my inner thighs. I did baby steps to work through those different things to get the core nice and stable and engaging the lower abdomen to help with the stability of the pelvis in centrating the joints and the pelvic floor.

Consistency was the key for me to get to the results that I wanted. I did these exercises at a minimum five times a week at 15 to 20 minutes a day. It took a month to reduce the sharp pain and six months to fully return to the yoga poses that I am so used to doing.  I would say my range of motion (which is greater than the normal range of motion) has not been fully restored, but I am on the fence as to whether that is a necessary or good thing.

That’s something I want to put out there. Do not get discouraged if you get exercises from your PT, athletic trainer, or chiropractor and you do not see results after three times of doing your exercises.  . You need to give it WAY more time and you have to put the time and the effort before you could say that it did not work. I couldn’t even sit criss cross applesauce with my daughter and now I can do anything and everything that I want to.  It just took time.

Conclusion

My lesson for all my fellow young dancers, gymnasts, and yogis who are out there and doing those awesome tricks and poses…  Please do your strength work as well so that you do not end up needing a hip replacement when you are in your 30s or 40s. If you have hypermobile ligaments, you have to protect yourself so that you keep those joints healthy in the long run.

If you have any questions, you can drop it in the comment section or you can send me a message through Facebook or Instagram. I’d be happy to do another podcast about your questions. Also, if you want me to talk about something specific, let me know!

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