** The importance of hip mobility and the anatomy involved. **
Your hips can tell us a lot! One of the first things we would check if someone visits our Clinic with pain, would be their hips and posture.
Hips can be identified as the core of our posture, if they are slightly out of a neutral position, this can affect other areas on the body quite significantly.
Common issues we have that are linked to hip mobility are things such as:
- sciatic pain (pain down the side of leg),
- lower/mid back pain
- knee pain
As we spend a lot of time at our jobs, most of them either being physical or working at a desk, some muscles become weaker and others become overused depending on our jobs, which can greatly affect hip mobility and pain felt in other areas of our body.
So what is the difference between Sciatic pain and Piriformis Syndrome?
Sciatic pain is very common but what also is common is the fact that it is misdiagnosed as Sciatica when in reality this is Piriformis syndrome.
Both conditions interfere with Sciatic nerve function.
- Sciatica results from spinal dysfunction such as a herniated disc or spinal stenosis.
- Piriformis Syndrome is when the Piriformis muscle (located in the mid Glutes) gets so overworked that it starts to put pressure on the sciatic nerve, which results in pain coming down the side of your leg.
How is Piriformis Syndrome linked to Hip Mobility?
The reason why this is linked to hip mobility is because the Glutes play a big part in the way we can move our hip position, by stretching these muscles and moving them afterwards, the effects felt from Piriformis Syndrome will decrease significantly.
Lets talk about dreaded back pain!
Lower to middle back pain is common for people who have an anterior (forward) tilt in their pelvis, which causes a prominent arch in their lower back.
To counteract this, releasing the below muscles will allow the pelvis to come back into a more neutral position with daily mobilisation techniques.
- hip flexors (abductors, adductors, psoas e.g.)
- Glutes
- lower back,
How do I release these muscles?
A great stretch for this is the child’s pose as this allows you to stretch your lower back in a way that can be difficult in any other position.
Also, working on engaging core and pelvic floor muscles can help to put less pressure on your lower back, as these are a huge part of the hip mobility as well.
Now lets talk knees
As the muscles involved with knee flexion and extension also connect to the hips, they have a big impact on our hip mobility and the pain that we can feel in our knees due to the poor mobility.
If the hips are out of line, the tracking of your knees will be affected as well, as the body will try to follow the posture you have.
By working on releasing, stretching and moving the muscles around the hips to become more pliable, the range of movement created will become greater and should reduce the pain levels felt in the knees.
When running for example, the following factors can cause problems with our knees.
- the lower body muscles that surround the hips
- The muscles connect to our knees such as: hamstrings, hip flexors, quadriceps e.g.,
- as well as the impact of running on a hard surface
If the hamstrings and quadriceps are overworked or weak, they won’t be working as efficiently meaning that we can get discomfort in our knees.
By working on hip mobility, especially hamstrings, quadriceps, hip flexors and Glutes, these effects can decrease, and less pain will be felt in your knees.
For more help, check out our other blogs or free downloadable resources packed with information, tips and exercises.
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