Hip pain when you walk, run or get up? Find out why.
A catch in the groin, an ache on the outside of the hip, stiffness for the first few steps after sitting. The hip is where your spine and legs trade load — so when something above it or below it is off, the hip is where you feel it.
The hip rarely hurts on its own
The hip is a deep ball-and-socket joint built to carry load and pass force between the spine and the legs. It is strong by design. When it starts to hurt, the problem is usually how it is being loaded, not the joint failing.
A stiff ankle, a weak glute, or a pelvis that does not control the thigh bone all force the hip to work at an angle it was not built for. Repeat that a few thousand times a day — every step, every stair — and the tissue around the joint becomes irritated.
Rest settles it. Then the first long walk brings it straight back, because the loading pattern never changed. This is the chain we trace when we look for the root cause of pain →, and the reason the hips so often control the spine →
Does your hip pain do this?
- A pinch or catch at the front of the hip when you squat or get out of a low chair
- A deep groin ache that builds over a longer walk or run
- An ache on the outside of the hip, worse when you lie on that side
- Stiffness for the first few steps after sitting, which eases as you move
- One hip that turns or opens further than the other
If two or more sound familiar, a movement assessment is the right first step.
Pain when walking or running has its own pattern — here is what hip pain on the move is usually telling you →
A scan names the tissue. It does not explain the load.
Scans of the hip often find labral wear, bursitis or early arthritis. The difficulty is how common those same findings are in hips that do not hurt at all. Structure alone rarely explains the pain.
A Foundation Assessment does not replace a scan. It looks at how your hip takes load — which is usually what is driving the pain. If anything in the assessment points to a need for medical review first, Dr. Abhishek will tell you plainly.
55 minutes to find what is loading the hip
Your story
When it started, what makes it better or worse, and what you have already tried.
How you move
Single-leg balance, squat and walking tests that show where the hip loses control and starts to compensate.
The finding
What is driving your hip pain — from the glute, the pelvis, the ankle or the core — explained in plain words.
Your plan
A prescribed plan of one-to-one Clinical Pilates → on the Reformer and Tower, to rebuild glute and pelvic control for what we found.
Hip pain, answered
Is it my hip or my back?
Hip problems and lower-back problems refer pain into similar places — the groin, the buttock, the outer thigh — so it is easy to mistake one for the other. The assessment is built to tell them apart before anything is prescribed.
Do you work with labral tears, bursitis or early arthritis?
Yes, often. The assessment decides whether movement therapy is right for you now, or whether you need medical review first. Either way you leave knowing where you stand.
Can Pilates help hip pain?
When the exercise matches the cause, yes. That is exactly why the assessment comes first — the wrong exercise can load an already irritated hip further.
Should I rest it or keep moving?
Usually neither extreme. The assessment shows which movements calm the hip and which aggravate it, so you can stop guessing and move with a plan.
Find what is loading your hip before you choose a treatment
One unhurried assessment to find what keeps irritating the joint — then a plan built for it.