Hip Strengthening Exercises for Runners

One of my favorite patient populations to treat is runners. I, myself, used to be a frequent runner and competitor. I find running to be freeing and invigorating. After I completed my years serving in the U.S. Army, I needed something to focus on as I found myself with too much spare time. While in the Army, I hated running. But, once I wasn’t being forced to run I grew to love the sport. I found that running provided me a way to get into great physical shape while meeting new people and discovering new places. Living in Austin, Texas, at the time also provided amazing weather for such an endeavor.

After diving headfirst into running. I began training for races of all distances. I began with a 5k and surprisingly placed 3rd in my age group. I was hooked! I quickly ramped up my running to race in a 10k, 20k, half marathon, and full marathon.

Not long into my running journey though, I discovered the pitfalls of running. I made training errors, mistakes, that now as a certified running coach and physical therapist, are obvious to me. I increased my running too fast, too soon, with too much distance without giving my body enough time to adapt. I also was not performing hip strengthening exercises. This led to several different running-related injuries, which is actually how I discovered that I wanted to become a physical therapist.

Why Should Runners Strengthen the Hip Muscles?

Strengthening the hip muscles is unfortunately often an after-thought for most runners. However, it is also one of the most important aspects that I try to educate my patients who come to see me in my PT clinic. 

Hip strengthening exercises for runners can provide the following benefits:

1. Injury Prevention
2. Faster Running Times
3. Decreased Fatigue
4. Quicker Response to Terrain Changes

Without getting too deep into the weeds of biomechanics, the hip muscles help to absorb the impact that occurs through the hip, knee, and ankle joints every time the foot hits the ground when running. 

The hip muscles are able to decrease the forces that travel through these joints, which can significantly reduce a runner’s overall risk for running-related injuries, especially at the knee joint.

So, on a pure injury prevention level, if you are a runner (and this includes both recreational runners and professionals) strengthening your hip muscles should sit high up on the to-do list if you plan on running injury-free over the long term.

The hip extensor muscles are the major muscle group that propels the body forwards when running. Primarily the hip extensor muscle group includes the Gluteus Maximus and Hamstrings. These muscles can perform their muscle action faster and with greater ease after a period of strengthening when compared to when they are weak.

Training the hip muscles through strengthening exercises also reduces the time (latency) required for our central nervous system to recruit the muscle fibers. In effect, improving the response time that the muscle fibers contract after your brain tells them to do so. Multiply these times thousands of leg movements throughout a run and your run times WILL improve.

We know that strengthening exercises, in general, decrease muscle fatigue. Running relies heavily on the hip muscles. By strengthening these muscles, the time to fatigue decreases. If the muscles can perform at optimum levels for longer times, it will lead to faster run times.

Stronger hip muscles can respond to varying terrain faster and with greater ease in stabilizing the body. This is especially important for those trail runners out there. As a trail runner, your body constantly has to respond to changes in terrain, oftentimes running on off-camber trails or hurdling rocks, roots, and branches. Your hip muscles have to be able to respond to these challenges without hesitation and ideally do so without compromising the other joints in the lower leg.

Do Runners Have Weak Hips?

While it’s obviously hard to speak in generalities, I would say that, yes, most runners do have weak hips.

Runners love to run, but what they don’t love to do is spend time inside a gym doing strengthening exercises.

However, I do my best to educate runners that hip strengthening exercises can actually improve their ability to run faster, longer, and stronger all while reducing the risk of potential running injuries.

Runners simply tend to have a stubborn mindset where all they want to do is run. It just takes some education on my part as a medical provider and certified running coach to explain to them the importance of performing hip strengthening exercises at least twice per week to maximize their full running potential.

Which Hip Muscles are Important for Runners to Strengthen?

Runners can maximize their full running potential and prevent future injuries by strengthening the hamstrings, glute complex, hip external rotators, and hip abductors. The hip flexors typically don’t require strengthening exercises because they are already overused by the running motion itself.

Which Additional Exercises are Critical for Pain-Free Running?

I think it’s fairly obvious to say that in order to continue running pain-free, there are other exercises and stretches that should be performed as part of a good maintenance program.  A proper warm-up and cool-down set around your runs are critical. Typically, I recommend doing a dynamic warm-up about 10-minutes before your run.

The Dynamic Warm-Up can include:

• Walking Knee Hugs
• Butt Kickers
• Walking Lunges
• Hip Openers (Gait Openers)
• Toe Walking/Heel Walking

The Cool-Down can include:

• Passive Muscle Stretching (2-minutes cumulative stretching of each of the following groups)
  1. Hamstrings
  2. Calf Muscles
  3. Hip Flexors
  4. Hip External Rotators and Extensors

Additionally, using a foam roller or roller massage stick is crucial to maintain the flexibility of the IT Band (Iliotibial Band) in the leg. The IT Band undergoes repetitive stress throughout the running motion. This results in increased tightness/stiffness of the IT Band over time. Eventually, this can result in increased knee and/or hip pain.

To prevent these potential issues, use these tools for the myofascial release of the IT Band:

• Foam Roll (5 mins – 1x/day)