Why Healthy Hip Flexor Muscles Are So Important
Tight hip flexors might be the cause of your lower back or knee pain!
If you have pain in your knees or lower back, you probably haven’t given much thought to your hip flexors. But did you know there’s a good chance that pain in your back, knees, or even your feet and ankles could actually be traced back to tight hip flexor? Fortunately, physical therapy at Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness in Normandy Park can help you loosen those hips!
Your hip flexors are located at the top of your thighs, where your thigh bone meets your hip bone. While their primary purpose is to allow us to flex our hips, they also contribute to many of our most basic movements, including walking.
At Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness in Normandy Park, our holistic approach to physical therapy means that we understand the location of the pain isn’t always the source of it. Lower back pain and knee pain are often caused by tight hip flexors, not a specific issue with the spine or knee joint.
Fortunately, stretching and strengthening your muscles can help reduce your pain and improve your mobility. Schedule an appointment with Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness in Normandy Park today to learn more about healthy hips!
The relationship between hip flexors and the back, knees, and ankles
Our musculoskeletal systems are a set of machinery, and like in any machine, each individual piece is connected to several others. Our hip flexor muscles connect to our spine, pelvis, and femur, which is why tight hip flexors can cause trouble throughout our entire lower body.
Hip flexors and knee pain: When your hip flexors are tight, they can’t follow the natural inward turn of your lower leg as you walk. This means that your lower leg turns inward as your upper leg stays where it is, leading to a tug-of-war with your knee in the middle.
Hip flexors and back pain: Tight hip flexors prevent you from fully straightening your spine when standing up, which also makes the hips unstable. Your back muscles will then tighten to compensate, compressing your spinal joints–and eventually leading to pain.
Hip flexors and foot or ankle pain. Food or ankle pain could be due to the lower leg trying to overcompensate for the hip’s weakness, as with knee pain, or it could result from tight hip flexors tilting your pelvis forward.
If something’s going wrong with your hip flexors, it can have far-reaching effects! At Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness in Normandy Park, we can help you find what’s causing pain in your lower body.
Checking for Tight Hip Flexors
You can check for several signs to determine if your hip flexors are causing your problems–whether in your hips or elsewhere. If you notice any of the following symptoms, it could be a sign that your hip flexors are too tight:
- Pain when you press down on the side of your hip
- One foot is turned in more than the other–this is a sign that the hip flexor on that side of your body is too stiff
- Pinching pain when you lift your knee to your chest
- Popping or clicking in the knee joint when you move your leg
If you suspect your hip flexors are tight, don’t worry! Schedule an appointment with Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness, and we’ll show you how to safely stretch and strengthen your hip flexors.
How Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness can help you strengthen your hip flexors
When you come in for an appointment, we’ll perform a thorough physical exam so we can determine for sure if your hip flexors are causing you pain in your back or knees.
Once we know the hip flexors are the culprit, we’ll work with you to develop a customized treatment plan focused on exercises designed to stretch and strengthen both your hip flexor and core muscles. Why the core? Like the hip flexors, it plays a major role in our everyday movement, especially posture. By strengthening the core, you take pressure off the hip flexors, allowing them to work more effectively.
We’ll also talk with you about prevention strategies. Prolonged sitting is the primary cause of tight hip flexors, so the best way to loosen your hip flexors is to get active, even if you aren’t specifically working your hips. Try to limit sitting as much as possible, and spend time every day in movement.
Schedule an appointment with Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness today!
At Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness, we want to get to the root of our pain–no matter where it is. If you’re struggling with pain in your lower body, schedule an appointment with us. Whether or not your hip flexors are the cause, we’ll work with you to find a solution.
Make your appointment with Kintsugi Physical Therapy & Wellness in Normandy Park today!