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How to heal a nagging hip flexor in 3 days or less...

Ha! I wish!

So I don’t exactly know how to heal a nagging hip flexor in 3 days or less but I sure know how to make a pesky hip flexor feel better over a longer period of time. I’ve learned this handy trick over the past few years because I happen to be the lucky (read: unlucky) owner of one very tempermental, problematic and all-round weak hip flexor!

The first time it bugged me was a couple of years ago, I don’t really know what happened but one day it started to hurt. Thankfully I didn’t have anything big on the horizon and good old fashioned rest seemed to heal it up.

The next time it bugged me was in the months leading up to Run for Water last year. After I’d hurt my calf, a few other things started to bug me probably out of overcompensation for that bum calf. This was when I really started to see how a proper exercise program could help clear away the nagging pain.

The last time this pesky part bugged me was last November when one day it just started to hurt again. The run didn’t seem overly hard but it was enough to aggravate it and it bugged me all fall and into the start of this New Year when I got serious about my exercises again and it cleared up.

I am most certainly not a doctor, a therapist or any kind of person qualified in any capacity to dole out fitness advice but I can tell you all about what worked for me. It’s pretty simple really. The key to keeping my hip flexor (and accompanying groin, glutes and hips) happy is a strengthening routine targeted at my hips and glutes, pulled together from the advice of both my chiropractor and physiotherapist.

Nikki’s Hip & Glute Strengthening Routine to Keep a Nagging Hip Flexor Happy 1. Lateral Leg Raises

• Lay on your side with back, bum and legs against a long wall (this is an important cue to stay aligned properly)
• Lift our top leg straight up, feeling the burn in your glutes
• If you don’t feel it in your glutes you are likely leaning too far forward or aren’t aligned
• I do 2-3 sets of 10 reps on each side

2. Lateral Leg Lift and Kicks

• I have no idea if this one has a proper name or not
• Lay against the wall as for the lateral leg raises
• Lift your top leg and then pull knee in to your chest and kick out your foot
• Return to straight leg and repeat
• I do 2-3 sets of 10 reps on each side

3. Clamshell

• Lay on your side with your back, bum and legs against a long wall for proper alignment
• Bend your legs at the knees with your feet still at the wall
• Keeping your feet together, raise your top knee, hinging at the hip
• I do 2-3 sets of 10 reps on each side

4. Bridges

• Laying on the floor, raise your knees and place feet flat on the floor hip width apart
• Stabilizing your abs, squeeze your glutes and lift your hips up into a bridge
• Hold for 5-10 seconds and lower
• I do 3 sets of 10 reps each

5. Pistol Squat

• Basically a one-legged squat
• Feet hip width apart, lift one foot off the ground keeping your quads parallel to the floor
• Slowly lower into a squat
• I do 2-3 sets of 10 reps on each leg

6. Bird Dog

• This exercise has many different names
• Get down on the floor on hands and knees, hip & shoulder width apart
• Keeping abs steady, slide one leg back and use your glutes to lift that foot behind you and to the ceiling
• Raise the opposite arm in line with your spine
• Slowly lower and repeat with opposite leg and arm
• I do 2-3 sets of 10 reps on each side

7. & 8. Plank/Side Plank

• I do a basic plank on elbows and knees
• I do basic side plank also from my knees
• I hold each plank for 10-30 seconds and do 3-5 reps
• I do the short intervals of planking to help protect my back

9. Hip Drops

• Standing with feet shoulder width apart, let one hip drop by taking the weight off that foot (you can bend at the knee to lift that foot from the floor if you want)
• Raise the dropped hip back up in line with your other hip and hold for a few seconds before letting it drop again
• I do 2-3 sets of 10 reps on each side

10. Stretching & Rolling. Lots and lots of stretching and rolling...

I tried desperately to take pics of myself doing some of these and well, that didn’t work out so well. For some reason I thought it would okay to photograph and include this awesome hand-drawn diagram instead (I’m pretty sure it’s not so awesome). Clearly, I’m no fitness artist but hopefully it helps you get the idea if my descriptions didn’t!

Hmm, nice shoulder shadow across this pic…forgive me, it was late!

I probably could have found some fancy little videos on the internet but it was late and I had to go do my exercises before bed!

So what’s with the reference to healing a hip flexor in three days or less you ask? Well, it seems I may have aggravated my hip flexor a little bit on Tuesday during my speed workout. I probably should have known better after having a couple weeks with much lower km than usual but I can’t go back and change it. Instead I’ll be diligently doing my exercises, stretching and rolling like crazy and hopefully making that hip flexor happy again before my first half marathon of the year on Sunday! I’m trying not to worry but do you have any injuries that just seem to keep coming back over and over? Did you ever manage to build up enough strength that they didn’t return?

Original article and pictures take static.blovcdn.com site