Do you have a labrum tear in your hip? Do you feel pain when you squat down? Or maybe if you
take your hip into full extension you might feel a crunching, or hear like a clicking sound when
you laterally rotate your hip? If so, this video is for you. Hey, my name is Lucas, I'm a yoga
teacher and trainer. I help a lot of students with various injuries. When it comes to hips,
labrum injuries are a really common complaint and a common problem. People are trying to figure out
what to do. Sometimes the diagnoses are a little confusing, a little ambiguous. Maybe you have it,
maybe you don't. Maybe you're waiting on an MRI, maybe you're waiting on an arthroscopic
exploratory surgery and you're just not sure what to do. Hopefully in this video we'll give you some
self-care tools that you can use to move forward. Here's what we'll cover. Number one, we'll talk
about what a labrum tear is. Number two, we'll look at movement as medicine, why it's important
to move to heal. And then lastly, we'll actually get into some practices. A quick disclaimer here:
if you're having trouble getting up and down from the ground, if your injury is disrupting
your life to the extent that you're not able to work or sleep, please go see a doctor. Hopefully
you've already seen a doctor. This video is for educational purposes only. Let's talk about your
labrum. I have a model here of a hip and a leg side of a hip, and the inside of a leg. Let's
imagine this is the right side on my body and I pull it out here. I've got my ilium here, this
is the top of my pelvis, the elephant ears of my pelvis, coming down into my femur here, my leg. If
I open up the joint on the inside, this concavity it's called your acetabulum. It's a really deep
joint. It's a ball and socket joint, it's one of the stronger, stable joints in your body. It is
the primary mover. When we lift, we load our hips. When we run and jump, we use our hips. It's really
a marvel in terms of human engineering. And this whole thing, this ball and socket joint,
is a synovial joint. There's a capsule with fluid around here and a big important part of
that capsule is your labrum. Your labrum is like a gasket, like a rubber gasket that comes out here,
and it helps to stabilize, lubricate, and make the joint work well. Just like the gasket in any kind
of engineering model would. What's the problem? Well, maybe we get hit, maybe our joint is lax,
it's loose, maybe it gets dislocated, maybe we have repetitive use or overwork injuries, and that
gasket, just like in any mechanical product, starts to wear out, or degenerate, or rip,
or tear, or get inflammation. And this is where we can get into a situation that's similar to
what might happen to the labrum in your shoulder, or to the meniscus in your knee. These cartilage,
cushioning, important parts of these synovial joints, when they get damaged they heal really,
really slowly, because they're primarily avascular, that means there's very little, if any,
blood supply. So instead, these tissues, these cartilage tissues, they get their nutrients from
the synovial fluids in the joint, via a process called diffusion. What that means is they slosh
around in the synovial fluids and they diffuse nutrients from them. In this way we need to move
to heal. So, whether you know exactly what's going on, or if you just feel discomfort, whether you
have an arthroscopic surgery scheduled now, or you're hoping to get one in the future,
whether you'd like to avoid allopathic medicine altogether, whatever the case,
assuming your doctor approves movement, usually getting that joint articulating is going to be
really helpful. Usually, applying very gentle stress to that labrum is going to help it to
heal up more quickly. Here's what happens when you hear words like "movement is medicine" and "motion
is lotion". When it comes to these synovial joints the movement will get those synovial
fluids moving, and a little bit of pressure, a little bit of stress, will help the scar
tissue that's laid down - maybe it's a type three collagen - turn into a stronger form of collagen,
so that labrum heals up just as strong, sometimes even stronger, than before. To that end,
we'll get into some exercises that can be really helpful to encourage that movement is medicine,
motion is lotion functioning, with a very important asterisk. And here's the asterisk:
do not push through pain, do not push into pain. Pain is your guardrail, pain is your body saying
your hip cannot go through this range of motion right now. I would like you with everything we do
to walk right up to the pain and then take one step back. That's where you exercise,
that's where you mobilize, that's where you strengthen. And from there, little by little,
very often you can accelerate your healing journey. Let's get into the practices.
The first two exercises we'll do are designed to take your hip through its full range of motion.
So that means hip flexion, extension, medial, and lateral rotation, as well as circumduction.
As we mentioned before, make sure you do not push through pain, go as far or not as you can
pain-free. Always feel free to scale these back. Here's how to do this. I have a chair, but you can
use a wall, a door, something right next to you to hold onto for balance. Step your feet a little
bit wider than your hips, hinge at your hips just a little bit, soften your knees, we don't want to
have a straight chain, that puts too much pressure on your hip. We want to have a broken chain,
so soften your knees. You'll find that your knee, especially your standing knee, will tend to dip
towards the inside. Instead, wing your knees to the outside, so your knees track over your
big toes, and you can exaggerate a little bit to prevent that knee drop to the inside. So my
hips are hinging, my knees are slightly bent, I'm leaning forward, my knees are winging out,
I'll place my hand on my chair or my wall for balance, and we'll do three, by three, by three,
by three. Here's how it works. Weight into my left leg and I'll lift my right leg up one,
two, three, as high as is comfortable. This is hip flexion. And then, like a dog on a fire hydrant,
I'll rotate to the inside. It's called medial rotation, and I'll go back one,
two, three. I'll pause here, turn the sole of my foot up towards the sky, one, two, three. Good.
Now back to center, laterally rotate so the outside, one, two, leg is still bent, three.
Put your leg down, shake it out, and reset. Slow controlled movements. Make sure that
knee doesn't dump in. Let's do another set. Feet a little wider than your hips, knees are softened,
hinge at your hips just a little bit, hold onto something for support, weight goes into your left
leg. Hip flexion, one, two, three, pause. Like a dog on a fire hydrant, one, two, three, pause. Now
sole of your foot up towards the sky, one, two, three, careful with that standing leg, pause. Back
up to center. Now one, two, three, pause. Release your leg and shake it out. For some of you, you'll
feel this more intensely in your standing leg than you do in the leg we're moving through the range
of motion, that's perfectly fine. Let's switch sides, reposition my body to the wall, the stool,
the chair, whatever you have. Step your feet a little wider than your hips, soften your knees,
hinge at your hips, hold on for balance. Left leg comes up, one, two, three, pause, like a dog on a
fire hydrant, one, two, three. Feeling any pain we back up a little bit. Sole of your foot up towards
the sky, one, two, three, pause. Back to center like a hacky sack, one, two, three, pause. Put
your foot down and shake it out. Three, by three, by three, by three. Let's try one more set here.
Feet as wide as your hips, knees are soft, hinge at your hips, place your hand down, knee comes up,
one, two, three, pause. As high as you can, turn your foot out, your knee goes in, one two, three,
pause. Now the sole of your foot up towards the sky, one, two, three, pause. Back to center like
a hacky sack, one, two, three, pause. Release and shake it out. I'll again switch sides.
We'll now work on a range called circumduction. Imagine you're painting with your big toe circles
on the floor, out to the side of you. Same thing with your feet, feet a little wider than your
hips, soften your knees, soften at your hips, place your hand for balance, straighten your
right leg, and watch what I'll do. I'll paint one, two, three, four, five clockwise circles, and then
unwind, five, four, three, two, and one. Put your foot down and pause. Remember, this standing leg
your knee is going to want to dump, make sure you keep it tracking to the outside over your big toe.
If you feel any pain in your standing leg, or the leg we're moving through ranges of motion, back
off, make smaller circles, smaller movements, work in a pain-free range. Let's do it one more time on
this right leg. Weight is in my left leg, using my hand here for balance, and I'll make circles, one,
two, three, it's called circumduction, four, and five. That was clockwise, now reverse it, five,
four, three, two, and one. Good. Put your leg down, we'll switch sides.
If you don't need the chair or the wall for balance by the way, you can certainly do this
in the middle of the room. Feet a little wider than your hips, soften your knees, soften your
hips, I've got my hand for balance if we need it, weight on my right leg, left leg extends,
and we'll make circles one, two, three, four, five clockwise, and then five, four, three,
two, one counterclockwise. Take a break, one more set. Set it up, remember to pay attention
to that knee on your standing leg. Hold on for support and we'll go one, my leg is straight,
two, smaller circles are possible, three, even really small, four, and five. And
then unwind counterclockwise, five, bigger circles are also possible, four, three, two,
and one. Good. Release down and shake it out. Let's now move over to the wall.
The final practice we'll do is an isometric wall sit. You've probably seen these before,
oftentimes people will do these for their knees, which they're great, but they're also great for
your hips. I'll show you what it looks like, and then I'll show you modifications, and then we'll
practice four rounds together. In an ideal world your feet would be a little wider than your hips,
and your knees would bend to about 90 degrees, your ankles would be under your knees,
and you'd smush your lower back into the wall, and we'd hold here. For many of you this is
going to be way too much on your knees and your hips, so you back off by increasing the angle.
You back off by increasing the angle and maybe you're here with just a baby bend in your knees,
but you have pressure going into your hips, the lower back into the wall. What we're attempting
to do here is gently stress that labrum, so as that type three cartilage is getting laid down,
as it's healing, it can transform into a stronger form of cartilage so your joint is healthy
long-term. Let's get started. We'll do 20 seconds on and then take a break. I'll hit my timer and we
will get into the pose. Please remember that pain is your guardrail, pain is your gating factor, so
if and when you feel pain you take one step back, modify the pose so that you can work in a place
that's pain-free. If your knees are bothering you, regress the pose. If your hips are bothering you,
increase the angle. Let's slowly make our way all the way up, release, and shake it out. We're doing
20 second holds in total. We'll move into our second set, we'll do four total wall sits. My feet
are a little bit wider than my hips, carefully, carefully lowering down, finding a place that I
can work from, really pressing my lower back into the wall, that'll help me. If you poke around here
with your fingers, you'll feel your quadriceps really strong. That's what we're attempting
to do here is to strengthen the muscles that surround the joint, while simultaneously adding
some positive stress to that labrum as it heals. Good. Let's release, slowly make our way back up,
you can kick out your legs, get rid of some tension. We'll move into round number three.
Feet a little bit wider than your hips, try to keep your feet straight ahead, don't turn them out
as you might in a squat. Move down to about a 90 degree sit, if it's comfortable, modify the angle
as needed and then, if you can, push your lower back into the wall. With two fingers you can poke
around, you'll feel those quads fired up strong, that's what we're looking for, positive stress,
not too much, not too little, right around that hip joint. Good. Place your hands, slowly make
your way up to a standing position, let's shake it out. We'll do one more set if you feel up for it.
Feet a little bit wider than my hips, outer edges are parallel, use my fingers for support as I
lower down, lower down to about 90. Press my lower back into the wall, really strengthen through my
legs, feel those quadriceps firing, supporting my hip joint, as I breathe here in these wall sits.
Good. Slowly make your way all the way back up to stand. This routine that we did, those range
of motion exercises, as well as these wall sits, doesn't take very long, about 10 minutes per day.
If you dedicate that time every day, you can really help accelerate your healing journey. I
hope you found this video helpful. Please grab the PDF down below, it has a summary of the notes of
things we've talked about, as well as photos and instructions for the exercises that we've taken
a look at. Remember, when you're healing from a joint injury, whether it's your hips or anything
else, it's really important that you take full agency over your healing journey. And remember,
you do need to invest some time, so you can accelerate your healing and make sure
that you set yourself up for a positive future. If you have questions or comments,
I'd love to hear from you down below. If you'd like more science-based yoga videos, hit subscribe
down below. I always love to hear from you in the comments section. And lastly, you can find
my stretching courses, my hip opening challenge, happy back, and other things at yogabody.com.
Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.