Hip flexor pain when walking or running
Pain at the front of the hip when walking or running may be due to the hip flexors. Your hip flexors are the muscles that run from the front of the lower spine, and pelvis, down across the front of the hip, and on to the thigh (femur).
The hip flexor muscles help to ‘flex your hip’ or lift your thigh up in front. When walking and running the hip flexors then of course play an important role to lift the thigh and repetitively swing the legs through in preparation for landing. The hip flexors also help to provide support at the front of the hip when your foot is on the ground and your body moves past your foot – when the hip moves into extension.
The hip flexor muscles include iliacus and psoas, which join into a common tendon and so are often referred to as the iliopsoas muscle. Rectus femoris and sartorius are another two of your hip flexor muscles.
Hip flexor pain when walking or running is most commonly associated with some sort of rapid change in loading. This might be related to a single incident like a strong kick or doing the splits. In this situation, your hip flexors may be painful due to a hip flexor tear, otherwise known as a hip flexor strain.
Alternatively, the change in load might not be related to a single incident, but an increase in walking or running volume or intensity – increasing walking or running distance, increasing pace of walking or running, which often involves increasing stride length, or participating in running repeats, hill sprints, bounding/stair bounding drills or similar high intensity activities.
The overloaded hip flexor muscles or tendons (referred to as hip flexor or iliopsoas tendinopathy) may become painful. The bursa (flat fluid filled sack) that sits beneath the hip flexors may also become painful and is known as iliopsoas bursitis.
You can read more about hip flexor pain by clicking on the bolded text in this sentence.
Trying the 3 strategies listed in our free download is a great place to start in relieving your hip pain in running or walking.