Video and Transcript: One Way to Treat Acute Hip Pain

Hi, everyone! Dr. Orit Hickman here from Pain Science Physical Therapy. I wanted to put together a quick video to show you one of my favorite hip stretches. 

So, if you read my-if you read my recent blog post, [you would know that] I have been experiencing an onset of right hip pain that came on from standing and cooking for too long a period of time. And, I really love to cook and bake in the kitchen, but, unfortunately, it does mean that I end up with some hip pain. And, the reason is because I tend to stand with most of my weight shifted to the right side. So, the muscles in my hip get really, really super tight. And, I’ve found that there is a stretch that I really like to do that helps with that hip pain. 

The way I do this-and the stretch is called the Figure 4 stretch. If you’ve been in physical therapy ever, you’ve probably been given this stretch if you have a history of hip pain. Sometimes, what will happen with my hip pain is I’ll feel it in my right hip/butt region, but it will also start to radiate down my right leg. And, that’s because the piriformis and the deep hip rotator muscles have gotten really super-duper tight, and they sit right near that sciatic nerve. So, they’ll put some pressure there and irritate it. 

So, the stretch I like to do is called the Figure 4 stretch. I’m going to show you how to do it in sitting as well as laying down. For sitting, what you want to do is you want to cross the leg over. And, this is for my right hip that I’m feeling irritation. You cross the leg over the other thigh, and you sit up really, really nice and tall. So, as soon as I sit up really tall, I immediately feel that tension and that pulling in the right hip. And, that may be all that you need to do. You can hold this stretch for about 20-30 seconds. 

If you go to sit up really tall and you don’t really feel much of a stretch in the right hip, then the next piece would be to lean slightly forward. And, when I do that, I want to make sure that I’m keeping my trunk really tall. If you round your back and lean forward, you really might not feel very much of a stretch because the key here is moving your pelvis properly forward to get a good hinge at the hip. So, sit up really nice and tall. Immediately, I feel a stretch in my hip. If I lean just a little forward [and] pull my belly button forward, then I feel more of a stretch in that right hip. And, sometimes, I’ll do this on both sides because, even though the right side is what hurts, the left side might be tight as well, and that can kind of make things feel a little uneven. So, I’ll do the stretch on the other side, but on this left side, it’s hardly tight at all in comparison to that right hip.

Now, for some of you, you may find that, if you try to do this, it’s really, really tough to get that leg up and over. So, a modification for this stretch would be to do it laying down. So, I’m going to show you what that looks like. So, I would lay down, and I would cross-you’ll see [that] I’m going to have you do it-I’m going to do it on my left side. You cross that left heel over that right thigh. And then, I might start to feel a stretch already in that hip. If I don’t feel enough of a stretch, then the next piece would be to pull the thigh, the opposite thigh, forward so [that] I get more of a pull in my left hip. If you have trouble doing this because you just-your arms are maybe a little too short or it’s just uncomfortable to lean forward, you can use a strap or a belt or a towel around the backside of the thigh on the other side. So, the other leg so that you can pull it forward, So, again, what you would do is you would cross the leg over. And, this is to stretch the left hip. And then, I bring the right knee towards my chest. I’m going to show you how that looks on the other side. So, now I’m stretching my right leg, and I’m bringing that left knee forward to feel more of a stretch in the right hip. Again, I would hold that stretch for about 20-30 seconds and maybe repeat it a few times throughout the day if I’m dealing with an acute episode, or a recent episode, of hip pain.

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