What are hip flexors? Do they cause this pain? And how to prevent it?

If you are a fitness enthusiast and cannot survive a day without hitting the gym, it is highly likely that sometimes you might have experienced an unexplainable, excruciating pain around your hip or groin region, where hip flexor muscles are located.

Hip flexors muscles are the muscles that are responsible for joining your femur or upper leg to the pelvic region, assisting in moving your leg upwards and to the front, sideways, and even in the backward direction. Hip flexor muscles are a combination of different muscles such as the inner hip muscles, thigh muscles, and the inner thigh muscles.

Hip Flexors Pain

The pain that you experience in your hip region might be because your hip flexors have tightened, or you might have torn a muscle near the hip-pelvic region. If you love to perform strenuous exercises on your lower body, then you might be putting your hip flexors at risk for injury. Putting too much stress on the hip region can stretch your hip flexor muscles beyond their range, as a result of which, they rupture and tear. Tearing of these muscles causes hip flexors pain.

Additionally, if you are bound to a 9 to 5 office desk job, and don’t get the time to stand and stretch, then this might also contribute to tightening of hip flexors. If your hip flexors are tight, then lower back, and hip pain might stress you ceaselessly.

Treat Hip Flexors Pain

Treating hip flexor injury takes time and patience. If you have pulled any of your hip flexor muscle while jogging or during a nerve-racking workout, try following the below-mentioned steps to ease and relax your hip muscles.

• Avoid further damage by discontinuing your stressful activity and take rest.

• Your doctor might recommend some analgesics to relieve the pain, but if you are on your own, over the counter medication might do just as well.

• Apply cold packs to the affected area. This helps ease up your inflamed muscles and muscle cramps.

• Avoid physical activities that caused your hip flexor injury

• If the pain continues, contact your physician for an analyzed diagnosis.

Exercise Your Hip Flexors:

If you think that exercising your hip flexors will further complicate your problem, think again. Certain exercises have been developed that can help strengthen your hip flexor muscles and to prevent further injury.

Stretches are of particular importance in strengthening hip flexors. Besides, you can try out the following exercises to make your hip flexors more flexible and robust.

1. Mountain Climbers

Lie down facing the floor. Pull yourself up by the support of your palms and your toes on your feet. Bend your knee and pull one leg and bring it close to your chest. Now repeat the process with your other leg. This exercise is done in the fashion similar to that of a mountain climber, hence the name.

2. Lunges

Stand straight for a while. Then bend your knee in the forward direction at an angle of 90 degrees, while your other leg in the same manner, but in the opposite direction. Put stress on the knee that is in the forward direction. Repeat this exact process with the other leg. Lunges are a great and simple exercise for stretching your hip flexors.

3. Leg Raise

Lie down straight, with your back facing the floor. Now bend one leg, while trying to lift the other without bending it. Stretch this raised leg till you make a 90-degree angle with your torso, and then put it down to rest. Repeat the process with your other leg.

 

 

 

 

 

If you avoid stressful leg and hip workouts, hip flexor injury can be prevented. Before setting off to start your tense exercise, strengthen your hip flexor muscles first by stretching not just the whole body, but specifically your hip and groin region.