In this video, I'm going to show easy hip pain relief
exercises for seniors. Stay tuned.
Hey, everyone. Dr. Rowe coming to you from SpineCare in
St. Joseph, Michigan. In this video, we're going to go over
easy hip pain relief exercises but exercises that are also
good for managing symptoms being caused from arthritis
that includes stiffness and tightness and the great part is
these are designed for seniors. So, there's not going to be any
awkward or complex movements and to make it easy, I'm going
to break the video up into two separate parts. In the first
part, we're going to focus on stretching the muscles around
the hip for very quick pain relief. You may even get relief
within 30 seconds and the second part, we're going to
turn our attention to strengthening those muscles for
long-lasting relief. So, hopefully, you'll have a lot
less issues throughout the day. To get the best results, go
through both parts and use what works best for you. Try to make
a routine. With that being said, let's get started. So, if
you're dealing with a lot of hip pain right now or just a
lot of stiffness or tightness due to hip arthritis, this is
an exercise that I would start off with Great part is we can
do this one in bed or on a floor. Just start lying flat on
your back like this. Your legs are going to be roughly hip
width apart, knees bent. You're going to take your heels and
gently press them into the bed or the floor. What we want to
do is slowly take our knees and turn them towards one side like
this. Trying to keep our bottom as flat as possible. So, as we
do this, you should start to feel a really good stretch form
in the hips. Great part is it's going to focus on internal and
external rotation in the hips. So, keep taking it down as much
as you can. When you feel that deep but comfortable stretch in
the hip, you're now going to hold this for five seconds and
then from there, you're going to relax and then repeat on the
other side. We call this one the windshield wiper for good
reason. I like to go back and forth roughly about five times
but if it feels pretty good, you can do as many repetitions
as you like. Just try to build into it a little bit more with
each repetition. So, afterwards, what we're going to
do now is a knee to the chest exercise which is going to
target the glutes a little bit more. So, what I like to do is
just bring my knees upward towards my chest, take my arms,
and kind of cut them just like this. What you want to do is
just passively pull your knees towards your chest as much as
you can. Again, keeping your bottom flat. You should feel a
really good stretch right here in the booty. You're going to
hold this comfortably for 15 to 20 seconds. And then you're
just going to relax and then repeat this two to three times
and with each repetition again try to build into it just a
little bit more so this is how we're going to take this
exercise to the next level and focus not only on stretching
things out but also building a little bit more strength so
let's have our legs roughly hip width apart again but this time
around what we're going to do is take our knees straight up
towards the ceiling and have them bent at 90degrees take
your hands and arms put them off to your side just like this
for support. What we're going to do is that windshield wiper
motion again. So, we're just going to take our knees towards
one side but since our legs are up, your muscles around the
hips are really going to fire to stabilize this movement. We
want to focus on moving through the hips not much through the
back. So, really just focus on trying to move through your
hips. You're going to feel that good activation of the muscles.
Hold this comfortably for 5 seconds. You're going to come
back up towards the middle and then repeat on the other side.
Again, I like to do this one for about five repetitions and
then I'm just going to relax. If it feels like you have a
little bit more energy, challenge yourself, throw in
another set or two but this is a great exercise to do daily
just to help lengthen and more importantly strengthen those
hip muscles. One of the best hip pain relief stretches that
you can do is what is known as the figure four or if you're in
the yoga, it is called the pigeon pose but I'm going to
show you how to take the figure four to level and get some more
pain relief. What we're going to do is start seated at the
edge of a chair, have very good upright posture. Try to have
your back as straight as possible. Whatever side that
you're having the most amount of pain. Let's say it's your
right side. You're going to place that side's ankle over
your other side's knee so when you look down, should look like
a figure four. I know a lot of people that are dealing with
arthritis will not have the mobility to get into this
position easily. To make it easier, what you want to do is
just straighten the other side's leg, put your ankle over
the shin grab your pant leg or just grab the shin and slide
your leg up into position just like this should make it a
little bit easier if you do have a lot of stiffness or
tightness in the hips you're probably going to notice that
even in this position your knee is going to be kind of pointing
straight up to the ceiling and you're already going to get a
really good stretch around the hips if that's the case just
try to hold this position for about 30 seconds and release it
and repeat that until you start to notice the knee goes down
just a little bit. It kind of just helps allow gravity to do
the hard work in the beginning but let's take this one again
to the next level. What we're going to focus on first is
taking our hands and cupping around the outside of our knee
and we're going to passively pull this knee towards the
other side shoulder. So, as you do this, really focus on
feeling a stretch right on the outside of the hips. It usually
feels really really good. Go to the point where it's a deep
stretch not causing any discomfort and hold this for 20
to 30 seconds. From there, you're just going to relax and
then you're going to repeat this three times and with each
repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. So,
this is again, how we're going to take this one to the next
level. We're now going to focus on taking this knee right here
and pressing it down towards the floor to target the hips
and the muscles just a little bit differently. I know a lot
of people like to take their hands and press into the knee
but don't do that. It can cause a lot of rotation to the hips.
Instead, just focus on driving that leg down as much as you
can through using the muscles. Once you feel a deep but
comfortable activation of the muscles around the hip, you're
going to hold this position and take your arms right here and
then put them across just like this. I always call this the
mummy position. You're going to have your back nice and
straight and you're just going to lean forward. The more that
you lean forward, the more that you're going to feel a deep
stretch around the hip, you're going to hold this one for 30
seconds you're going to come back up and then again you're
going to repeat that three times building to adjust a
little bit more with each repetition to target some more
muscles and hopefully get some more relief instead of going
forward with it try this so let's press our knee all the
way down towards the floor but this time around just tilt your
body away from the side of pain so I'm just kind of tilting a
little bit towards my left this time around you're going to
feel a deep stretch form right below the ribs going into the
lower back towards the hips so really focus on feeling it
right in the lower back going towards the hips again hold
this one for 20 to 30 seconds relax and then repeat this
three times go through all of those motions if any of them
seem to help you out a little bit more you can always throw
more repetitions in and I do recommend doing this on both
sides to keep everything imbalance so in this part we're
now going to move on to focusing on strengthening
exercises for long-lasting hip pain relief. This first one is
called the clamshell bridge. It's a great one to do daily
right in bed. We're going to start flat on our back just
like this. What we want to do is take our feet and press them
together and then we're going to take our knees and just wing
them outward as much as we can. This right here is going to be
called the clamshell and you should already start to feel a
really gentle stretch in the inner part of your thighs
towards the groins but more importantly towards the hips.
So, really focus a deep, nice stretch. From there, we're
going to take our hands, put them on our hips, or off to our
side like this for support. Before we start this exercise
though, we want to brace our core muscles to support our
spine. So, it's almost kind of like bracing for a punch like
if somebody was to punch you right in your stomach which
hopefully won't happen but you just want to tighten them a
little bit and then squeeze your glutes. From there, we're
going to hold that and then just lift our hips upward
towards the ceiling as much as we can focusing trying to get
our body in a nice straight line from our knees to our hips
to our shoulders. If you're unable to get into that
position due to weakness or pain like let's say you can
only go up an inch or two. Do the best you can. Hopefully,
over time, you'll gain strength and flexibility to get into
this position but you're going to feel a ton of muscles start
to fire. In the back, the glutes right here, the legs,
everything that helps support the hips. Hold this comfortably
for 5 seconds. You're going to relax and then you're going to
repeat this five to ten times and with each repetition, try
to build into it just a little bit more. If it feels like you
have a little bit more energy, you can always throw in another
set or two. So, here's a couple strengthening exercises that
you can do standing. They're great to do daily for some
good, long-lasting hip pain relief. For this one, we need a
sturdy chair preferably one without wheels, one that can
also support our body weight. So, what I'm going to do first
is what is known as hip clocks. Let's stand off to the side of
that chair. I'm going to demonstrate what to do on the
right side but you're going to do this on both sides to keep
everything in balance. So, just have your body nice and
straight. Take your hand, grab on to the top of the chair.
What we're going to do with this right leg first is keep
our knees straight and then point our toes away from us
like this. Engage the calf muscles. You should also start
to feel some leg muscles start to fire. Just like a clock,
what we're going to do is start at noon then slowly lift our
foot upward like this while also just pointing and reaching
away with our toes as you do this you're going to feel a lot
of muscles around the hips primarily the glutes right here
start to fire go up as far as you feel comfortable and what
you want to do is hold this for 3 to5 seconds you're going to
slowly come down like this relax and then on the next
repetition instead of going at noon go towards one o'clock and
then repeat you're going to notice it hits the muscles just
a little bit differently. So, you want to do this pretty much
at all hours of the clock going towards three right here and
then going backwards all the way to six o'clock just like
this. You're going to notice that one certain position like
let's say at three o'clock for me just feels like it's
addressing the most amount of stiffness, tightness, achiness,
maybe even pain. It just feels like it's really weak at that
point. At that point, treat it like your weak link and throw
more repetitions in to focus on that and hopefully get some
more pain relief and again, do this on both sides. So, after
we're done with that, we're now going to move on to the king of
hip pain relief exercises which is the squat. It's really
important to strengthen the glutes because that is one of
the main if not the main hip stabilizer. So, we want this
nice and strong. What we're going to do is go right up to
our chair and take our hands and put them right on the top
of the chair. Your legs are going to be roughly hip width
apart and you're going to play all of your body weight onto
your heels just like this during the exercise. Try to
keep your back straight during this and it's pretty straight
forward. You're just going to slightly bend your knees and
then you're just going to squat your bottom down and away from
the chair. What you want to do is challenge yourself by going
down as far as you feel comfortable. For a lot of
people, it might only be an inch or two. Do the best you
can but the further that you go down, the more that you're
going to feel it in your legs, glutes, and around the hips.
When you feel that comfortable activation of the muscles,
we're going to hold this position for three to 5
seconds. We're going to come back up like this. Take a
breather and then we're going to repeat this nice and slowly
for five to 10 repetitions and with each repetition, try to
build into it just a little bit more by going down even
further. Afterwards, if it feels like you have a little
bit more energy, try to throw in another set or two. If the
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