

To avoid outer hip pain with running, consider these tips - > stretch, strengthen, and smart trainingĪ flexible balanced body is a better moving body. How Can I Avoid Feeling Outer Hip Pain with Running? If you are doing the right things – proper exercise, reasonable activity, a little ice now and then, your gluteal tendinopathy should improve. Sometimes icing after exercise or massage will make your hips feel better. Targeted exercise and prescribed stretching can help. You may need to cut back on training intensity for a little while. Treating lateral hip pain caused by running involves fixing the problems that started it. In severe cases, even walking and sitting can be painful. Usually going upstairs makes it worse and running hills can be really intense, or impossible. Some patients say that their running-related lateral hip pain feels like stiffness in the morning, especially if they have had a big run, or a lot of activity the day before.

This spot is the greater trochanter, which is where the tendon inserts. Patients sometimes notice a tender to touch- a hot spot- when they press on the bony part of the outside of the hip. Sure, patients feel lateral hip pain on the outside of the hip, but it can refer down the leg or even to towards the groin. In other words, how do I know if I have gluteal tendinopathy (GT)? Lateral hip pain due to GT can feel like an ache, burning, or dull pain and the area around the tendon will be tender. Many physiotherapists who treat runners have high speed video equipment to help diagnose someone with a poor running form. You might not even know your body is moving in a risky way that can cause pain, until it’s there – a sore outer hip. If you have an excessive hip drop, or overstriding, you might stress your gluts into painful dysfunction. If you have underlying core or glute weakness, your body may be compensating, and your gluteus muscle is unable to do its job properly. Sometimes this pain goes hand in hand with a biomechanical issue, meaning your basic running form is compromised. Gluteal tendinopathy is the medical term for irritation and “degeneration” of the tendon on the outside of the hip. So….activities that irritate these gluteal tendons are likely to lead to hip soreness on the outside. The strong tendons of the gluteal muscles insert on the outside of your hip, at a place called the greater trochanter. When you run, each strike of your foot on the ground creates big compressive forces that travel up your leg, and into your hip, putting the tendons under stress. They arise as part of the tendinopathy process… and those nerves are source of soreness and pain. The changes that occur during gluteal tendinopathy include new blood vessel and new nerve formation. That’s why I stated earlier that many tendinopathies are due to training errors. Those changes are often precipitated by putting too much load onto a tendon that wasn’t ready for it. In a situation where tendinopathy arises, the tendon attachment develops characteristic changes we can see under a microscope. Tendons are the attachment of muscles to bone. Gluteal tendinopathy is when a muscle or tendon acts up, creating pain on the outside of the hip. This is the gluteus medius muscle: A common source of lateral hip pain What is Gluteal Tendinopathy? Few people have heard of it, but gluteal tendinopathy is the most common cause of running-related outer (lateral) hip pain. When your hip is sore on the outside, and if you’re a runner, it is usually one of a few problems: Hip pain in runners occurs more often than you’d think. In my experience, pain around the hip is also a fairly common overuse injury in runners-especially pain on the lateral aspect (outside) of the hip. With running injuries, most people think of knee, foot, and ankle pain. Runners are their own worst enemy - as many of these injuries are training errors. Millions of people run on a regular basis, and although it’s a great way to stay active, most runners will experience an injury, or several, along the way.

My hip pain reared its ugly head off and on for years, leaving me frustrated and longing for a good run. I know because I am one of those runners.

But when runners get hurt, and routines are off, annoyance sets in. It’s easy to see why – you can take it anywhere, it requires little equipment, and you don’t need a lot of coordination to do it. Running is one of the most popular ways to stay in shape and improve fitness. There are a few causes of pain on the lateral or outer of the hip… and one muscle, in particular, is quite the trouble maker. Hip pain, especially pain on the outside of the hip can become quite frustrating to a runner.
