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Hip Flexor Pain Information
Answers to Questions About Hip Flexor Injuries
What Are Hip Flexors?
How do Hip Flexors Get Strained?
How Long Does a Hip Flexor Issue Last?
How Do You Reduce Hip Flexor Pain?
What Can I Do Now?
What is the Hip Flexor and What Causes a Hip Flexor Strain?
The Hip Flexor is a group of muscles that flex the hip and bring the knee closer to the chest.
Every hip flexor strain is different and could impact any of the multiple muscles involved in hip flexion.
Your symptoms may not be the same as someone else because of a difference in the location and severity of the strain.
But a doctor will still likely call it a strained hip flexor even if the symptoms are a little different.
Other common terms you may hear are hip flexor tear, or pulled hip flexor and, if it is really bad, a doctor might call it a rupture.
Having a hip flexor injury can be frustrating and confusing, but you can heal it.
You simply need to have the right treatment methods for your injury and avoid common mistakes that slow the healing process.
Let's dive in and look at hip flexor strain treatment so you can heal your injury finally and completely.
The first question you might have is, "what are hip flexors"?
The hip flexors are a group of five muscles that include the psoas, iliacus, rectus femoris, pectineus and sartorius muscles.
You do not need to remember the names of the muscles.
Just know that straining any one of these muscles near where they connect into the hip would be considered a hip flexor injury.
The key function of the hip flexors is to raise the knee though a range of motion that stops at the chest.
But mostly we are making smaller movements with the hip flexors as part of everyday tasks.
We use our hip flexors when climbing stairs, running, playing sports, or just walking into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.
Injuries to the hip flexors can happen for a variety of reasons but the most common cause is from overuse often in sports.
Other common causes of this type of injury are cycling, soccer, sudden changes in direction during sports or high kicks in dancing.
But it does not have to be sports related.
We all know that too much sitting is part of daily life for many of us in our modern work environments.
It is common for hip flexors to weaken and become less flexible from excessive sitting.
While sitting we are not getting normal hip flexor stretch from activities that require a larger range of motion.
Tight and weak hip flexor muscles make it easier to strain yourself while engaged in simple activities.
But regardless of how you sustained your hip flexor injury there are specific tested steps to healing and getting back to normal.
Of the five hip flexor muscles most injuries happen to the rectus femoris but you can sometimes feel hip flexor pain on one side of the buttocks or in the lower back.
This is especially the case if the injury has not healed over a long period of time.
This is because other muscles around the hip will start to try to help the injured muscle.
If this happens you may experience pain in the compensating muscle that is attempting to do the injured muscle's job.
So, if you started with pain in the front of your left hip and it moved to your left buttock this is a sign that one muscle is trying to help the other.
One way to think about this is remembering what you felt right after the injury started.
If at that early point you felt the pain in the front of the left hip but later it moved to the left buttock, or some other part of the hip, that may be a sign those muscles are trying to compensate for the injured hip flexor muscle.
You still want to treat that initial muscle strain.
Common Mistakes Causing Hip Flexor Strain
Your hip flexors are a complex muscle structure and really understanding your injury and taking the right steps at the right time to heal it is critical to your success in rapid healing.
If you read about hip flexor injuries on the web it can be confusing.
There are hundreds if not thousands of articles and videos from what reputable looking sources that may steer you wrong.
There are many recommendations online about hip flexor exercises or stretches.
Some sources are biased and attempting to sell something that will not help at all.
Some sources may be recommending things like stretching that can be useful but only at the right time.
Hip Flexor Stretching
Stretching at the wrong time is a good way to injure yourself again or cause additional injury.
It's common to find an article or video that will have a title that says something like "How to Relieve Your Hip Flexor Pain In 30 Seconds With This One Weird Stretch".
What they are not telling you is this is intended for someone who has some slight pain from tightness not someone with a significant injury.
If you stretch a muscle that has a recent tear it is likely that you will cause some reinjury and delay the healing process.
You will be frustrated and in pain. Stretching should only be done if your doctor recommends it or if you have been healed for a long time and want to keep your hip flexors from getting too tight.
During the healing process you want to stabilize the area not stretch it or exercise it.
A good way to do stabilize it is with KB Support Tape.
Professional athletes always tape their injuries because it works.
You are probably going about your daily life still needing to work so let's provide some support for the injured area so you can heal as quickly as possible.
Impatience with Hip Flexor Pain
Understand that the biggest single factor slowing down your healing process is reinjuring your hip.
You can reinjure your hip flexors by not resting the strain or not stabilizing it when you have to move around.
Understand that a hip flexor strain will take a minimum of 3 weeks in the very best case to heal.
It can take many months depending on the severity of the injury.
The people who heal the fastest are the ones who accept that it may take longer than they want and are careful to avoid reinjury of the damaged tissues.
Give yourself the time to heal.
Even if the pain is mostly gone you have more healing left to do deep in the muscle tissue.
Stabilizing the area and enhancing blood flow are the best ways to speed the healing process as much as possible.
More on that in a later section.
Isometric Strain Injury
Your hip is designed to be in constant motion.
That motion contributes to circulation and prevents the parts of your joints from getting squeezed for too long.
People don't realize, you can actually hurt your hip by 'doing nothing'.
Constant pressure on a body part when it is not moving can lead to injuries called Isometric Strain Injury.
If you are inactive for an extended period of time, and your hip is being held in a position where part of it is being squeezed to much and too long, you may be hurting yourself.
You have synovial fluid buffers called bursas or bursae between the moving parts in your hip to protect them during motion. They're like protective, slippery pillows.
When you move, the fluid is squeezed and flows back into place, over and over again.
It's designed to work that way.
It's possible, though, when you stop in the wrong position, that your position squeezes the joint constantly.
When that happens, the synovial fluid can get all squeezed away until adjacent moving tissues are pressing constantly and firmly on each other.
If you stay like that long enough you can do some damage just from the constant pressure.
Or, if you move the joint, while the tissues are tightly squeezed together, they may tear.
If that position is held for really long periods of time, day after day, that damage may accumulate.
The same goes for your tendons and ligaments and nerves and the other tissue in your hips.
If they get squeezed under a lot of pressure for a very long time, they can get damaged.
Very often, it is the times when we're not using our bodies that cause the condition.
And that kind of damage doesn't hurt when it's happening.
It hurts later, when you try to use the tissue for your normal activity.
Very often, that is what is behind Hip Flexor Pain, especially when you don't remember an event that could have caused it in the first place.
So, the chances are high that you may be hurting your hips during times of inactivity.
It may be when you are sitting for long periods with your legs crossed.
Or you may stand for hours with your hip extended and all your weight on one leg.
It may even be a position that you sleep in for long periods.
There may be times when your hip is locked in one position for a long time and with a fair bit of weight or pressure.
Think about it.
With Isometric Strain, you probably don't notice it when you're actually doing the damage.
This makes it hard to figure out because you end up feeling the pain during other times of activity.
It is quite possible that the activity you are doing when you feel the pain isn't the root cause of the problem.
But the pain is an indication that your situation is bad enough that your activity may start to make your situation worse.
The good news is that if you correct the underlying cause and treat the condition so it heals, you may be able to resume your favorite activity and never have to worry about hip flexor issues again.
Pain Medication
Taking some over-the-counter pain medication and heading back to the baseball field two weeks after an injury is inviting a much worse reinjury of the hip flexors.
Take your time and focus on stabilizing the area to reduce pressure on damaged muscle tissue to protect it from further injury.
This is a case of needing to go slow in order to go fast.
Once you stabilize the area and protect it from reinjury you can also begin working to bring blood flow to the area to help speed up healing.
Cold therapy such as ColdCure® Wraps will reduce pain and swelling without needing to use medication.
More about that in a bit.
How Long Does a Hip Flexor Strain Last?
Hip Flexor Strains are going to last until your body successfully heals the underlying injury.
By the time that swelling develops to the point that you notice it, you have probably had the injury for several months already.
There's no doubt about it, something in your lifestyle is causing your injury to persist - your body can't heal the problem as fast as its getting reinjured.
So, it is unlikely that it will just go away, unless you change something about your activity.
Some people get to this point and realize what may be the root cause.
Perhaps it was an increase in activity level or a new activity.
Perhaps it was that you have always maintained a fairly high activity level, but as you age or gain weight (we almost all do a bit with age), maybe your body can't keep up as well.
In many, many cases, you did something once that caused you to have an injury in the moment, and it didn't have a chance to heal, and the injury has persisted ever since.
That's the best scenario, because if that's the case, if you can allow your body to heal and get past that injury, you are likely to be able to return to the same activity level as before and never have the problem again.
No matter what the cause, though, you have an underlying injury and you need to let it heal.
If you heal your injury, regardless of the reason it started in the first place, your bursitis will go away and you will likely be able to resume normal life.
That is, if this whole ordeal is dealt with properly...
Proactive Treatments
What You Should do When You Have a Hip Flexor Strain
There are things you can do to speed up your healing.
Stabilize the injured area and protect from Reinjury with KB Support Tape.
Use ColdCure® to reduce pain.
Use BFST® to bring blood flow to the area and speed healing.
For a little while - not forever - it is really helpful to give your hip a rest.
In many cases, resting your hip for a few weeks will give it time to heal to a point that your body gets ahead of the healing / reinjury cycle.
It's important to realize that once the pain and any swelling go away, your underlying injury will not be healed completely, so take it easy.
Go back to regular life gradually, once the pain and swelling are gone.
Rest & Use Conservative Treatments
If you want your hip flexor injury to go away as quickly as possible, you need to rest the affected area.
Avoid any physical activities that could cause further injury.
Do your best to avoid the activity that caused the tear in the first place.
Do regular ColdCure® treatments to control the pain and swelling.
You can also focus on healing the strain with regular BFST® treatments.
This combination will work to accelerate the healing process.
Around the 4-6 week mark - not before - you can start doing some light stretching and strengthening exercises.
Slowly work your way back to your regular level of activity.
Continue doing BFST® treatments long after the pain and any swelling disappear to maintain the healing you've done.
Do a ColdCure® treatment if you experience any flare-ups of pain and swelling and after any significant activity.
Surgery is Only For a Major Injury to the Hip Flexor Muscles
You don't have to undergo surgery in order to recover from most Hip Flexor Injuries.
Most tears will heal with conservative treatments.
However, it's possible that your situation does require surgery but do get a second and maybe third opinion as surgery is a big step and not all doctors will agree that it is needed.
If surgery is your only option, make sure your post-surgery recovery goes as smoothly as possible by using BFST and ColdCure.
Use a ColdCure® Back and Hip Wrap to reduce the inflammation and relieve the pain for the first few days following surgery.
Once the inflammation has gone down, promote blood flow to the injured area using a BFST® Back/Hip Wrap.
This will improve your circulation and help you heal faster.
Always get an opinion from more than one Orthopaedic Surgeon before committing to surgery.
Consider what each one has to say.
Dealing With Pain
Painkillers are BAD, Not Good
Painkillers mask the pain, causing you to continue to stress and injure your hip.
This will only make your condition worse.
It is understandable that people need relief from the pain, so if you have to take painkillers, restrict them to times when you are off your feet.
You can use painkillers to help you sleep.
Using them when you are active is a recipe for permanent damage.
Your choice of pain killers is important.
You can give us a call to discuss which ones are best.
The ColdCure® Back and Hip Wrap is designed to relieve the pain associated with hip flexor injuries.
This safe and effective pain reliever is also great at bringing down swelling and inflammation.
The ColdCure® Back and Hip Wrap is incredibly soothing and provides support and protection for your hip.
The painkilling element is incredibly powerful and it works instantly - there's no 20 minute wait like with pills.
Hip injuries can be extremely painful and debilitating.
Painkillers such as ASA or acetaminophen are often used to treat the pain but these drugs do nothing to treat the actual condition.
In fact, most painkillers are also blood thinners and make the bleeding worse for fresh tissue injuries.
With little exception, people who rely on pain killers through the day have longer recovery times and greater likelihood of permanent tissue damage.
Blood Flow is Essential for Healing
There's no doubt about it, for healing most tissue injuries in the body, blood flow is the most critical element in rapid recovery.
The blood flow brings the building blocks for new cell growth.
It carries away the waste and damaged tissue.
It brings antibodies to protect against infection.
Your blood flow supplies the cells in your body with everything it needs and removes much of what needs to be taken away.
While your heart ensures a sufficient supply to your body as a whole, in the individual parts of your body there are a lot of factors that determine how much that area receives.
Motion in local tissue can play a significant factor in blood supply but when you are injured, that motion is less and so is that trigger to bring blood to the area.
People often don't understand that motion is enough and that doesn't mean putting a heavy load on your joint.
When you swing your leg gently and with limited range that's enough.
Adding the weight of your body or doing stressful exercise doesn't improve the motion and the added loads can end up resulting in reinjury.
Find light gentle motions that you can do with no pain at all and do those several times each day.
If you're using crutches the swinging of your leg through the day is enough, you don't need to add more load.
Diathermy is a medical process to promote blood flow in tissue that is at rest.
Diathermy is a process by which energy is sent deep into the body to stimulate blood flow in tissue far below the skin.
An example of diathermy are ultrasound treatments that people get when they go to physiotherapy.
The challenge with ultrasound is that all diathermic treatments are effective for up to 4 hours whereas people go to the physio clinic once every couple of days.
Also, ultrasound is an older more risky process that can damage subdermal tissue so it needs to be performed by a technician - you can't do it at home.
The good news is that you have an option to ultrasound.
BFST™ devices from King Brand are diathermic devices that people can buy to treat themselves at home.
With a home diathermic device, you can treat yourself multiple times each day and significantly improve your blood flow and the healing process.
And they're more powerful too.
An Ultrasound device is very focused and the effective area can be less than 1 square inch in the underlying tissue.
That's why it needs to be constantly moved around, both to cover the whole injury and to prevent the tissue from burning.
BFST devices have massive coverage areas, treating up to 70 square inches without needing to move it around.
They are typically up to 10x more powerful than ultrasound too - and completely safe.
Blood Flow Stimulation Therapy™ (BFST®) gives your hip the blood flow it needs to heal quickly and completely.
BFST® brings extra oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the injured area - a requirement for the body to heal itself.
With a King Brand®BFST® hip Wrap, blood flow can be stimulated in the area of injury while you are at rest.
With improved blood flow and without physical activity and the risk of re-injury, you can recover from your hip flexor injury at a surprisingly rapid rate.
I purchased the ColdCure & BFST Back Wraps for a hip injury I couldn't completely rid myself of.
I had debilitating pain where I had to completely stop mountain biking along with other workout endeavors.
Just walking was agony.
I have injured myself several times over the years because of my sport but always healed; however, this time I was worried.
Of course, going to get an MRI or other X-Ray was out of the question at that time because I had no health insurance coupled with unfortunate life circumstances.
Its incredibly difficult to self-diagnose but an MRI averages $2,600 without insurance, and the $100 spent on a Chiropractor was like throwing the money out the window.
I researched like my life depended on it, over nine months of reading, trying to figure this out.
The good part is the incredible amount of learning one can gain from that type of research.
This leads me back to why I bought this product.
I was intrigued by the energy web which is *ultrasound* .
I was very skeptical, but at this point in my journey (nearly 9 months), but the first time I used the BFST on my hip, I felt *good* after the 20 minutes.
That twinge when I externally rotate my leg was lessened.
I was excited about that.
Fast forward 3 weeks, I now use it 20 minutes in the morning and I continue to reap the benefits.
I have actually forgotten to use it at times.
The ColdCure wrap is a must have.
While rehabbing myself, I use this on my lower hip in the evening.
The items are very well made, packaged and the customer service is top-notch.
I am fairly sure in the past year, after everything I have learned, what I had was a combination of several injuries, plus a pulled hamstring.
I tried the back wraps on my hamstring, but its too big, so I have bought the Leg BFST and Cold Cure.
Anna
Anna from Minnesota - BFST Back|BFST Back - March 8th 2016
I'm a figure skating athlete and also teach, I actually just competed.
Last night I did the BFST.
Oh my gosh I have to tell you that after 1 treatment my hips felt so much better.
I actually slept last night!
It was wonderful!
Thank you so much.
Kathy from New Jersey - - BFST Back|ColdCure Back - May 17, 2022
My only regret is that I did not find your website and products sooner.
I have been nursing a sport induced hip injury for 5 months and could not get any improvement until I started using the BSFT and ColdCure Wrap.
Only after 2 weeks I am able to get back on the tennis courts with limited play but with continue treatments looking forward to full court mobility soon.
The description for my type of injury matched what my MRI showed.
Your website is very educational about soft tissue injuries and easy for anyone to understand.
Thanks for your products and great website.
Linda from Texas - - ColdCure Back|BFST Back|Pre-Cut Tape - Sep 13, 2017
King Brand® soft tissue rehabilitation medical products are the #1 choice by top Athletic Therapists and Medical Practitioners worldwide.
We provide guaranteed results and customer satisfaction.
Like all King Brand® products, there simply isn't a better performing option.
All King Brand® products come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Try our products and if you are not completely impressed, you can send them back for a full refund.
We know you will love them though, because thousands of people already use them and rave about the results.
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They are intended to prevent, treat and cure soft tissue injuries and chronic conditions.
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