Your Hip Flexor Injury

Hip flexor injury is very common in sports, especially soccer, football, and running. Caused by explosive movements, injury to these muscles can be painful, and cause all kinds of problems.

Treating your hip flexor injury centers around understanding hip anatomy, and proper intial care, as well as focusing on improving your strength and flexibility.

The Hip Flexors

The hip flexors are made up of three different muscles. The Rectus Femoris, Psoas Major, and Illiacus. These muscles work together to help flex the hip, and to provide stability for the lower extremity.

The Rectus Femoris is one of the quadriceps muscles, and also helps with knee extension. The illiopsoas group runs from the lower spine and pelvis to the femur.

These muscles can be strained during activities, and can cause pain and loss of motion at the hip.

Causes

The most common cause of hip flexor injury is acute trauma. You may experience one specific instance when you felt your hip flexor pull. This may have been when you broke into a sprint, made a cut, or kicked a ball.

Tight muscles and poor flexibility will contribute to hip flexor injury. When muscles are tight, there is an increased amount of tension on the tissues. When this increased tension is added to by an explosive movement, injury can occur.

Hip flexor strain can also be caused by compensation for other injuries, or weakness of other muscles. This is common if you have core weakness. When the lower abdominal muscles do not stabilize the pelvis, the hip flexor muscles will try to compensate for this weakness and become overworked.

Symptoms

The most common symptom of a hip flexor strain is pain. It occurs along the front of the hip and may radiate down the front of your thigh. Your pain will increase with movement, especially trying to lift your knee toward your chest.

Running, jumping, and even walking can be painful, and your sports performance may be limited.

You may have a small amount of swelling, but this is not very common. Muscle spasm and bruising may also occur, depending on how severe the injury is.

Treatment

If you have suffered a hip flexor strain, you should see your family doctor to determine exactly what is wrong. Initial care should focus on rest, and the use of ice to control the inflammation.

Ice massage or ice packs work well for this injury. Once your pain begins to subside, after a few days, you can begin gentle stretching of the hip flexors.

Hip Flexor Stretching

Improving your flexibility is the key to successful treatment and prevention of re-injury. Hip flexor injuries can very easily become chronic in nature, especially if you return to activities too quickly, or fail to address any flexibility problems.

Prevention

Preventing hip flexor injury focuses on good flexibility, as well as making sure you warm up before you go full speed. Warm muscles are much less likely to be injured. So take the time to warm up and start slowly before you go all out. A good flexibility program will also help to reduce the tension on the muscles, and reduce your likelihood for injury.

Summary

Hip flexor injury can involve any or all of the three hip flexor muscles. It can occur with explosive movements, or gradually over time. Initial treatment should focus on rest and the R.I.C.E Principles, as well as seeing your family doctor. A good flexibility program and proper warm up is the best way to work to prevent this injury.

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