Hip Pain

The Real Source of Your Hip Pain
What Your Health Care Professional Is Missing

It really stirs me up when I hear that a professional athlete has had chronic muscle pulls to their hip and the only thing the trainers do is ice the area, use e-stim, stretch the area and then gradually try to strengthen it. This bothers me because no one is looking at why it happened. You may hear that it was caused by a tight muscle, but normally I disagree with these types of general diagnoses. But for the sake of argument let’s say I do agree. The first question I would then ask is why was the muscle tight in the first place? Why is the other side not as tight? And with so many athletes performing similar functions, why is it that certain chronic muscle pulls seem to target certain athletes while others are spared?

One of my client’s, Trish, would be a case in point. Trish was a high school softball player that suffered from a chronic hip flexor pull. She came to me about midway through her season. This hip flexor pull was so deep that technically it was effecting the actual hip itself. Prior to our consultation the trainers had her stretching and icing after practices and games. First, let me state that while I understand how committed kids and coaches can be to the game, I do not think she should have been playing with such an injury. In order to manage it she was seeing a physical therapist in addition to using e-stim and ultrasound on the area. She had also been prescribed antiinflammatories.

While all these well intended efforts definitely have their place, they