Most of us think about our hips only when they start to complain. Yet the hip joint carries almost everything we do: standing up, climbing stairs, squatting to lift a child, striding out on a walk. When the hips move well, the whole body moves well. When they stiffen, the knees and lower back quietly pick up the slack, and that’s often where the pain shows up first.
As a hip and knee surgeon, I spend a lot of my week talking people out of operations. The most useful conversation I have is usually about movement. This article is the version of that conversation I wish everyone could hear before they walk into a clinic.
Why hips lose their range of motion
The hip is a ball-and-socket joint, designed for movement in every direction. It’s also surrounded by some of the body’s strongest muscles: the gluteals at the back, the hip flexors at the front, the adductors on the inside, and the deep rotators underneath.
Those muscles adapt to what we ask of them. Sitting for eight or nine hours a day keeps the hip flexors shortened, and the gluteals switched off. Over months and years, the joint capsule and surrounding tissue adapt to that position. The range you never use becomes the range you lose.
Age plays a part too. Cartilage gradually thins, and the joint surfaces become a little less forgiving. The World Health Organization estimates that osteoarthritis affects more than 500 million people worldwide, and the hip is one of the most commonly affected joints. But the pattern I see far more often in clinic isn’t arthritis at all. It’s a perfectly healthy joint that has simply been asked to sit still for too long.
What good hip mobility actually looks like
Mobility isn’t the same as flexibility. Flexibility is how far a joint can be pushed. Mobility is how far you can move it yourself, under control, with the muscles doing the work. That distinction matters. A hip that can be stretched into a deep position but cannot be held there by its own muscles isn’t stable, and unstable hips are the ones that get injured.
A few everyday tests tell you a lot. Can you squat to a comfortable depth with your heels on the floor? Can you sit cross-legged without discomfort? Can you stand on one leg for thirty seconds without wobbling or hitching the opposite hip? Can you tie your shoelaces without a struggle? None of these need to be perfect. They are simply a way of noticing what your hips are and are not doing for you.
Five exercises for Hip Mobility I recommend most often
These are the movements I give to patients in the clinic and use myself. They take about ten minutes and don’t need equipment. Move slowly, breathe normally, and stop short of pain. A mild stretching sensation is fine. Sharp, pinching, or deep groin pain is not.
1. The 90/90 hip switch
Sit on the floor with both knees bent at roughly ninety degrees, one leg in front of you and one to the side, so your legs form a kind of zigzag. Keep your chest tall. Slowly rotate both knees to the other side so the legs swap roles, then back again. Aim for ten slow switches. This trains internal and external rotation together, which is the range most adults lose first.
2. Half-kneeling hip flexor stretch
Kneel on one knee with the other foot flat in front. Tuck your pelvis under gently, squeeze the glute on the kneeling side, and shift your weight forward a few centimetres. You should feel a stretch at the front of the kneeling hip. Hold for thirty seconds, then swap. Add a slow reach overhead with the arm on the kneeling side to deepen it.
3. Deep squat hold
Stand with feet slightly wider than your hips, toes turned out a little, and lower into the deepest squat you can manage with heels down. Hold on to a door frame or a heavy chair if you need to. Stay there for twenty to thirty seconds, breathing, and gently press your elbows into your knees to open the hips. If your heels lift, place a folded towel under them. This is the single most useful position for hip health that most of us never visit.
4. Glute bridge
Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat. Push through your heels and lift your hips until your body forms a straight line from shoulders to knees. Pause at the top for two seconds, squeezing the glutes, then lower slowly. Fifteen repetitions. Mobility without strength is a joint waiting for an injury, and this is where hip strength starts.
5. Standing leg swings
Hold on to a wall and swing one leg forward and back in a relaxed, controlled arc, letting the range grow gradually. Ten swings, then ten side to side across the body. This warms the joint and is a good bridge between stretching and walking, running, or sport.
Building Hip Mobility Exercises into a normal day
The exercises are the easy part. The hard part is doing them often enough to matter. In my experience, patients who succeed do not add a separate session to their day. They attach the movements to something that already happens.
The deep squat hold works well while the kettle boils. The hip flexor stretch fits at the end of a walk. The 90/90 switch is a natural companion to watching television. A few minutes, several times a day, does more than one long session on a Sunday.
The other habit that matters is simply sitting less. The WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour recommend breaking up long periods of sitting with any kind of movement. Standing up every thirty to forty-five minutes, even for a minute, keeps the hip flexors from settling into a shortened position.
When mobility work isn’t enough
Stiffness that improves with movement is usually a mobility problem. Pain that gets worse with movement, especially deep groin pain when squatting, pain on the outside of the hip that wakes you at night, or a feeling that one leg has become shorter than the other, deserves a closer look. Those symptoms can point to the labrum, the cartilage, or, in older adults, the bone itself.
In that situation, a few weeks of stretching will not fix it and may irritate it further. This is the point at which a proper hip evaluation with a clinical examination and weight-bearing X-rays is the sensible next step. Most people who come in worried about their hips do not need surgery; they need a diagnosis and a plan. Knowing exactly which structure is causing the trouble is what turns generic exercises into the right exercises.
Back or buttock pain is another common source of confusion. People often assume it’s the hip when the lumbar spine is actually responsible, and the treatment is quite different. If you’re not sure, that’s a reason to get checked.
A word on arthritis and exercise
People with hip arthritis sometimes worry that exercise will wear the joint out faster. The evidence points the other way. A Cochrane review of exercise for hip osteoarthritis found that land-based exercise programmes reduce pain and improve physical function, with benefits that last for months after the programme ends. Movement nourishes cartilage; it does not grind it away.
The adjustment for an arthritic hip is intensity, not avoidance. Gentler ranges, more repetitions, and a preference for cycling, swimming and walking on flat ground over running and deep loaded squats. If you’ve been told you have arthritis, the exercises above still apply, with the deep squat replaced by a supported half-depth version.
The bigger picture
Hips that move well are the foundation of natural, pain-free movement for the rest of your life. Most of what protects them costs nothing: a few minutes of daily mobility work, some basic strength, and less time in a chair. The joint is remarkably good at looking after itself when we let it do what it was built for.
Start with one exercise, do it every day for a fortnight, and notice what changes. Then add the next. And if something feels wrong rather than merely stiff, don’t push through it. Get it looked at properly, so that the plan you follow is the right one for your hip.
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