Your hips are a very important part of the body. They connect the lower body to the upper body, ensuring that both halves of the body can work together. Therefore, it is critical to keep the hips strong and in good working order.
If the hips become misaligned, it can lead to problems and injuries such as pain in your shoulders, lower back, knees, or ankles. In extreme cases, hip surgery may be needed.
There are many things that you can do to keep your hips strong and aligned. A great place to start is to exercise and stretch regularly. Squats, lunges, glute kicks, and glute bridges are great for strengthening the hips.
Stretches such as the straight-leg hip twist, seated groin stretches, glute stretch, and supine groin stretch will help with hip flexibility. Increasing hip strength and flexibility will go a long way in preventing pain and the need for hip surgery.
Reduce Your Chances of Needing Hip Surgery by Regularly Realigning the Hips
Regularly realigning the hips will help to keep your movement pattern correct and ease friction on joints. To do this, follow these steps:
- Lie down on your back, flex your feet and keep your legs straight.
- Move your arms out to the side, 90 degrees away from your body, and put your palms down.
- Put your right heel on top of your left foot, being sure to keep both feet flexed.
- Lift your right hip off of the ground while contracting the quadriceps
- Twist until your right hip is pointing straight up.
- Relax your upper body and turn your head the opposite way.
- Hold the stretch for 30-60 seconds. Breathe deeply the entire time.
- Reverse your feet and perform the same stretch on the other side.
