Hip Mobility FAQs – Answers and Resources to Help You Overcome Tight Hips

I don’t have to guess: If you’re reading this article, you’ve got tight hips. And you’re in good company with most of the Western world!

Another thing I don’t have to guess? Your tight hips are getting in your way in some area of your life or another. Maybe you’ve had to avoid certain activities because your hips just won’t allow you to get into the positions you need to. Or your tight hips have caused you pain or discomfort throughout your day.

Either way, you’re here because you want answers.

This isn’t so much an article as it is a database of answers to the most common questions we’ve gotten over the years about hip mobility. You’ll see a bit of repetition in these answers, but that’s just because we’re trying to anticipate the questions you may have, and those may differ slightly from those of another person.

We’ve tried to cover as many bases as possible so you walk away with the answers you need about all things hip mobility.

At the bottom of this page, we’ll also introduce a complete, step-by-step program that will help systematically reduce tightness and pain in your hips and other major areas. That’s optional, but it’s there if you want to save time and get directly to work.

Let’s get into it!

Credentials: Who am I to be giving advice on health and injury?

The internet has made it easy for anyone to share their unqualified opinions on any topic, so you’d be right to be skeptical of any advice you find. Unfortunately, many people may be experts on the pain they feel, but they know very little about how to fix or prevent it.

That’s where I come in.

Since 1998, I’ve been helping people heal from pain and injury as a clinical physical therapist, as well as through our online programs. I’ve worked with countless thousands of people by now, and have seen the impact that safe and appropriate exercise can have on painful or disruptive conditions. Limited hip mobility is extremely common, but it can be addressed and improved.

Millions of people have seen our hip mobility videos on YouTube, and we’ve worked with many thousands of clients over the years. The combination of in-person, hands-on therapy alongside interaction with so many people online gives me a unique experience in finding patterns that work for the majority of cases.

I encourage you to seek qualified medical help if you’re experiencing chronic pain, and if any of the routines and exercises I share seem to make things worse or hurt, please stop! No advice is perfect for everyone, and it may be an indication that you need to see a doctor.

How do I know if I have tight hips? What are the symptoms?

Here are the most common questions we’ve gotten about the symptoms of hip tightness, and what causes your hips to be tight.

How do you know if you have tight hips?

Put simply, you know if you have tight hips if you feel restricted in motions you want and need to do in your daily life. If you dread having to stoop down on the floor, or crawl under your desk to pick something up, then you probably have tight hips.

It would be easy to just give a set of “standards” to meet that tell you if you have tight hips, such as: Are you able to touch your toes with your knees straight? Can you step forward 3 feet into a lunge and keep your body upright? These can be good tests but they’re arbitrary.

A better, more individualized, answer to that question involves looking at how you feel and move during your day.

How do your hips feel when you squat up and down, kneel, and twist when you do your chores around your house?Is there anything holding you back in your hobbies and physical activities you like to do?

Looking at it that way, you can find out if it is your hip mobility that is preventing you from enjoying how you use your body in your life. And with those specific activities in mind, it’s easier to know what exercises you may need to fix that.

What are the symptoms of tight hip flexors?

If you feel discomfort and tightness in movements where one leg is forward and the other back behind you, your hip flexor muscles are likely the culprits.

Our hip flexor muscles’ primary function is to lift our knees up in front of us, and one hip flexor also helps to straighten our knee. If those muscles are tighter and affecting how you move, you’ll likely feel tightness (and possibly soreness) right in front of your hip (below your hip bones), and also in your lower abdomen.

This would affect you most in activities such as stepping up onto a high platform or steps, especially when your upper body is upright and not bent forward.

What are the symptoms of a tight psoas muscle?

You may feel a sensation of tightness and ache in your lower abdomen and the top of the front of your hip. There can also be difficulty and pain in lunge positions (where one knee is far forward and the other leg is stretched back behind you).

The psoas muscles attach to your lower spine and go forward to the front of your upper thigh bone (femur) and help to lift your leg up in front of you. So you may also feel it in walking and running activities.

What are the first signs of hip problems?

We usually first feel these issues when we start to exercise or participate in sports where we have to lunge and twist and kneel in much larger ranges of motion than we do in our normal day. We then feel this afterwards in symptoms of muscle and/or joint soreness.

If we’re lucky, these are temporary and go away as we get used to these activities. It’s when they linger for more than a few days or steadily get worse that it becomes a problem.

In general, most people don’t take their hips through their full ranges of motion in their daily activities. We sit and walk and occasionally take the stairs and walk up and down inclines, but these are mostly “mid-range” activities. They don’t challenge our hip mobility or go to our “end ranges” of motion.

So we don’t usually realize when our hips begin to lose range of motion until we try to do things that go to these end points.

This can be prevented by working on hip exercises that take us through our full hip ranges of motion, gradually working on improving this at our own pace versus having to suddenly do this in sports and hiking and other physical activities.

Why are my hip flexors tight?

In general, most people don’t take their hips through their full ranges of motion in their daily activities.

We mostly sit at our desks or in the car throughout the day. We do walk and occasionally take the stairs and walk up and down inclines, but these are mostly “mid-range” activities. They don’t challenge our hip mobility or go to our “end ranges” of motion.

Because of this, our hip flexor muscles decrease their tolerance for stretch and we feel that as tightness. Also we can “forget” these end ranges of motions, so when we do go to these stretched positions they can be interpreted as dangerous by our muscles and nervous system, so they become restricted as a protective measure.

How do I know if my hip flexors are tight?

Put simply, you know you have tight hips if you feel restricted in motions you have and want to do in your daily life. If you dread having to stoop down on the floor, or crawl under your desk to pick something up, then you probably have tight hips.

It would be easy to just give a set of “standards” to meet that tells you if you have tight hips such as: Are you able to touch your toes with your knees straight? Can you step forward 3 feet into a lunge and keep your body upright?

These can be good tests but they are arbitrary.

A better, more individualized, answer to that question involves looking at how you feel and move during your day. How do your hips feel when you squat up and down, kneel, and twist when you do your chores around your house? Is there anything holding you back in your hobbies and physical activities you like to do?

What does hip mobility mean?

Hip mobility is physiologically defined as the hip joints’ ability to go through the various ranges of motion available at the joint (flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, external and internal rotation).

This can involve freedom and restriction of the joint itself, as well as the pliability of the muscles surrounding the hips.

How do I loosen my tight hips? What exercises fix hip tightness?

We’ve got lots of resources for improving mobility in your tight hips, but if you’ve ever had questions about how to address hip tightness, these are the most common questions we’ve gotten about that.

How do you loosen stiff hips?

There are a variety of good hip exercises to do, and the combination of static (holding a stretched position) and dynamic (active movements) is best. This style of exercise combines learning how to relax, in the stretched position, and controlling how to move into and out of these positions. Both are necessary to improve and retain your hip mobility.

What is best to do first though is figure out which particular hip movements feel stiff for you, this then lets you be efficient in choosing hip exercises to help. Do you have trouble rotating your hips in and out? Bringing them in front of you or back behind you?

Pick a couple of exercises that match those more difficult motions and work on those every day. Our hip mobility routine is a good place to look for exercises to work on.

How can I realign my hips?

First, let’s talk about what “realignment” means. There really isn’t a perfectly symmetrical positioning of our hips. Our bodies are more complex and resilient than that. So if someone does some tests on you and says your hips aren’t aligned, you should take that with a very big grain of salt.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t feel sensations of stiffness or simply “being off” in your hips, especially if one hip feels much different than the other in some motions or in strength.

If this is the case then there are a variety of hip exercises that will help improve your range of motion and strength in flexion, extension, and rotations. This would be a very good start in getting your hips to feel the way you want.

How do you loosen tight hips and lower back?

First is identifying which particular movements feel stiff for you, which then lets you be efficient in choosing hip exercises to help.

A combination of static (holding a stretched position) and dynamic (active movements) is best. This style of exercise combines learning how to relax in the stretched position, with controlling how to move into and out of these positions. Both are necessary to improve and retain your hip and lower back mobility. (Click here to learn more about different styles of stretching and why we recommend a combination of static and dynamic).

It’s also very important to include strengthening work to complement these improved ranges of motion.

How do you stretch your hip flexor?

There are several hip flexor muscles, and one that both moves the hip and the knee. To stretch the ones that only move the hip, bring one leg forward and the other is placed back behind you. The stretched hip flexors will be of the leg stretched back behind you.

To stretch the hip flexor (rectus femoris) that also crosses the knee, you’ll have to be in this lunge position while also bending the knee with your foot moving toward your butt.

How do you work on your hip mobility?

First is identifying which particular hip movements need more work to reach your hip mobility goals. For example, squatting all the way to your heels, lunging forward, sitting with your knees apart; this then lets you be efficient in choosing hip exercises to help.

How do you get a full range of motion in your hips?

For instance, one of our favorite hip stretches is the kneeling lunge stretch. Rather than just getting into the stretch and holding it for an extended period, you’ll work on contracting the muscles, moving in and out of the stretched position with control. Then, you’ll hold the stretched position for a short period (15-30 seconds). Repeat 2-3 times.

How do you increase hip flexor mobility?

There are several hip flexor muscles, and one that both moves the hip and the knee. To stretch the ones that only move the hip, you have to bring one leg forward with the other placed back behind you. The stretched hip flexors will be of the leg stretched back behind you.

To stretch the hip flexor (rectus femoris) that also crosses the knee, you’ll have to be in this lunge position while also bending the knee with your foot moving towards your butt.

How do tight hips affect the body? Do tight hips cause knee or back pain?

Often, when one area of the body is tight, other areas of the body become tight or restricted as well. That whole “hip bone’s connected to the back bone” thing is real 😉 Here are some questions related to how hip tightness can impact other areas of the body.

Can tight hips cause knee pain?

The causes of pain are difficult to pin down, and it’s usually more than one factor. But tight hips can contribute to knee pain especially if the tightness at the hips causes the knee to move more and in directions that can be irritating.

Our hips are much stronger structurally and have more muscle than our knees. They are meant to provide most of the force for lifting, jumping, running, and even simpler activities like kneeling and squatting. If these forces are transferred to our knees then they can cause overuse and repetitive strain problems.

Can tight hips cause lower back pain?

Lower back pain is very complex, and chronic pain (lasting longer than 12 weeks), can involve many contributing components. Tight hips may be a part of this if the tightness causes you to move your lower back in ways it’s not prepared for.

For example, when you lift something up from the ground and your tight hips make it more difficult to get into the best positioning, then your back muscles and joints have to take more of the strain to complete the lift. If this is more than those muscles and joints can handle, either with small loads repeatedly, or a heavy object once, then this can cause pain. This is especially true if your low back is more sensitive because of prior injuries.

It can be very helpful to improve your hip mobility and strength to lessen the strain to your lower back.

Can weak glutes cause tight hip flexors?

There is a supposition wherein the body responds to a lack of strength/stability in one muscle with increased tone and tightness of another muscle. There really doesn’t seem to be any direct evidence for this. There are instances of people being tighter or more loose in general throughout their entire body. But as for weaker glutes making your hip flexors tighter, I would disagree with that assertion.

Can the lower back cause hip pain?

Yes, due to the phenomena of “referred pain,” wherein the cause of pain is not necessarily at the site of the pain. The lower spine and nerve roots and peripheral nerves can be irritated and cause pain to the front, side, and back of the hips.

How do you stretch tight hips? Can stretching improve hip mobility?

We’re obviously big fans of (the right kinds of) stretching, but there are sorts of questions you may have about stretching. And what about other kinds of exercises? The following addresses all of those kinds of questions.

How do you stretch the side of your hip?

Unfortunately this isn’t as simple as showing one stretch, as the “side” of your hip is comprised with several muscles and structures. You might need to stretch in different positions to access the muscles around the areas that feel tight.

On the side of your hip from around the joint level and up can include several glute muscles and other hip rotators. Directly to the side and lower towards your thigh could be the Tensor Fascia Latae muscle and the Iliotibial band (ITB) and even your lateral quadriceps and hamstrings.

How can I improve my mobility?

(Click here to learn more about different styles of stretching and why we recommend a combination of static and dynamic).

Does stretching increase mobility?

It certainly can, when you stretch consistently and follow it up with more active exercise.

Short term stretching, defined as seconds to a few minutes in one session, tends to immediately improve how far you can move the body area. This is due to an increase in your “stretch tolerance.” Basically how much your body can tolerate a stretched position.

This isn’t necessarily an increase in your mobility, however, mostly because it is temporary, lasting only a few minutes or so. But if you take advantage of this time where you can move the stretched area more, do repeated movement in this period, and do this consistently over weeks/months, you should see improvements in your mobility.

Does stretching help blood flow?

Stretching can help improve blood flow to the stretched area if it causes a sensation of decreased tension. This then allows you to move the area more. This increased movement and muscle contraction does facilitate increased blood flow, though stretching by itself likely does not significantly improve blood circulation.

What happens if you don’t stretch?

In general, our bodies tend to hew to the saying of “use it or lose it,” primarily because of the principle of conserving resources. It takes energy to maintain muscle and bone structure and one reason why bone and muscle growth happens is the body’s perceived need to adapt to the loads being placed upon it.

Range of motion in increased joint mobility and flexibility is much the same—there is energy required to maintain them. And if there is no challenge to these range of motions then there is no perceived need to maintain them.

These generally would happen over the course of a couple of weeks.

If you aren’t necessarily doing dedicated stretching but you do exercise and other activities that go through a decent range of motion a couple time of week, you probably wouldn’t notice anything, until you try to go into significantly challenging ranges.

How do squats increase hip mobility?

The bottom of a squat exercise (also called the squat position) has the knees brought up towards the chest and your knees bent fully. This position of full hip flexion generally stretches the glutes, hip rotators, and also the hip adductors if your knees are pushed out to the side.

Doing this repetitively up and down as far as is comfortable takes your hip joints through a challenging range of motion for most people, both for their joints and the surrounding muscles. Doing this repetitively trains your joints and muscles to adapt to the motions and make changes. Just as in strength training, flexibility training requires repeated challenges for you to improve.

Is yoga good for mobility?

Yoga can be good for a lot of people that want to improve their mobility. If you like doing yoga, then that’s great, but it’s not necessary to improve mobility. A lot depends upon the style/class/teacher. Some may be able to adjust to your individual needs and others will have you follow the class no matter what. There are also other things that accompany yoga (chanting, meditation, etc) that you may not necessarily want.

Hip Pain and Injuries

Where there’s tightness, there is often pain. Sometimes the tightness and pain are caused by an injury, sometimes tightness makes you more prone to injuries—either way, they often go hand-in-hand. Here are some common questions about pain and injuries in the hips.

Where is hip flexor pain felt?

You’ll likely feel tightness (and possibly soreness) right in front of your hip (below your hip bones), and also in your lower abdomen.

Our hip flexor muscles’ primary function is to lift our knees up in front of us, and one hip flexor also helps to straighten our knee. If those muscles are tighter and affecting how you move then you might have symptoms in lifting your leg forward and in activities like walking and running.

What are the signs and symptoms of a hip flexor strain?

You’ll likely feel tightness (and possibly soreness) right in front of your hip (below your hip bones), and also in your lower abdomen.

In terms of movement symptoms, you may feel pain/ache:

when raising your knee up in front of youwhen you are striding forward or stepping up and your leg is stretched behind youwhen you walk and stand for a prolonged period of time. You may not feel it right away but only after 5 to 10 minutes or more.

How long does it take for a strained hip flexor to heal?

It depends on the severity of the muscle strain. There are different classifications of muscle strain, graded by how much of the muscle fiber is affected.

Grade 1 strains are when only a small percentage of fibers are torn. There is pain and tenderness, but your range of motion and strength isn’t greatly affected. These usually heal within a few days to less than two weeks.Grade 2 strains have many more fibers torn, up to half of the muscle. There is significant pain immediately at the time of injury and it’s painful to move your hip. You may also feel swelling at the front of the hip. This injury can take several weeks or more to heal fully.Grade 3 strains are a full tear of the entire muscle and, as you can imagine, is very painful. This often requires surgical intervention to heal, and rehab will take several months.

Should you stretch a strained hip flexor?

This depends upon the level of injury (see above for Grades of strain). For Grades 1 and 2, it can be helpful to stretch but with careful considerations.

In the initial hours and day or so after the injury, it’s best to rest and gently move your hip in as much pain free motion as possible. If it is painful even at rest, you can still move but only to the point where it doesn’t increase your pain above a 4/10. If that isn’t possible, then you’ll likely need to rest more and seek medical attention.

After a couple of days or so you can lightly stretch the muscle by going into the stretch and holding just a few seconds and repeating that several times. Again with the rules of as much pain free as possible and/or not increasing your pain past 4/10.

Why does the outside of my hip hurt?

Unfortunately, there is not a simple answer to this question, as the “outside” of your hip is comprised of several muscles and structures.

If you experience pain on the side of your hip from around the joint level and up, there could be tightness or other issues with several glute muscles and other hip rotators. If your pain is directly to the side and lower towards your thigh, your issues could be with the Tensor Fascia Latae (TFL) muscle and the Iliotibial band (ITB) and even your lateral quadriceps and hamstrings.

Any of these structures could be strained from movement or trauma and could be the source of your pain.

There could also be what is called “referred pain”, which is when the source of the pain at the outside of your hip is not those structures. It could be the lower back, where there is nerve irritation or similar.

A way to analyze this (aside from seeing a health care professional, which is recommended), is to think about what changes in your activities happened in the past few weeks. Did you fall? Did you get hit? Did you start a new exercise routine? Did you do more in your exercise routine? Etc.

Why does the front of my hip hurt?

The front of your hip includes the hip joint, hip flexors, hip adductors, quadriceps, femoral (and other nerves). Any of these structures could be strained from movement or trauma and could be the source of your pain. There could also be what is called “referred pain”, which is when the source of the pain at the front of your hip is not those structures. It could be the lower back, where there is nerve irritation or similar.

If you’ve got tight hips, it’s your lucky day. Since so many people come to us with hip mobility restrictions, we’ve put together quite a few helpful resources over the years, to address different aspects of this complex and disruptive problem:

Daily Hip Mobility Routine—This is our most popular routine, with hip stretches you can practice every day. Understanding Your Hips—This guide will give you a better understanding of what’s causing your hip issues, so that you can address the right aspect (be it strength, flexibility, or motor control)Routine for Hip Pain—If you’re in active pain, this routine is designed to help you address and overcome that.Hip Impingement Guide—You might have been told that the reason for your hip issues is FAI (Femeroacetabular Impingement) and that surgery is the only option. This guide will give you some alternatives to try first.Instruction Manual for Your Hips—Here’s a podcast that
explains basic hip anatomy and physiology, common issues and injuries, and how to get back to moving and grooving in the best way.Hamstring Flexibility Guide—It’s quite common for people with tight hips to also have tight hamstrings. If that sounds familiar, this guide will help. How to Adjust Stretches—You may feel like you’re “too tight to even stretch” (that’s a common one we hear!). I promise you’re not too tight, you just may need to make some adjustments. This article will give you some good tips for adjusting any stretch.

And if you want to improve your hip mobility even more, our GMB Mobility program will help you do that in conjunction with improving your mobility, strength, and control throughout your body.

Build Flexibility That Actually Helps You Move

GMB Mobility is a guided program that improves your total body mobility. You’ll resolve restrictions so you can finally move and perform your best.

GMB Mobility Details

GMB Mobility

Free Up Your Body to Move Easier and Perform Better