Are you looking for the best hip strengthening exercises that can help you improve your athletic performance and reduce the risk of injury?

Then you’ve come to the right place

I have always shrugged strength training as a tool for preventing injury and improving performance. Doing regular hip strengthening exercises is no exception.

But that’s a big mistake. Strengthening the muscles surrounding the hips, such as the glutes, adductors, and abductors, are all important if you’re serious about reaching your full athletic prowess.

Why?

Hip weakness has been linked to injuries such runners knee, IT band syndrome, piriformis pain, patella tendonitis, and many more injuries common in runners.

Anatomy of The Hips Muscles

Before I get into the many exercises you need to strengthen your hip muscles, let’s first give an overview of the hip muscles.

To get the full picture of the connection and link between your hips and overuse injuries, you must first understand some basic anatomy.

So, what do I mean by the hips?

Located in the upper leg, where the bone connects with the pelvis,  the hip is a ball and socket joint, and it plays an important role in many day-to-day activities.

Each time you walk, scale up a flight of stairs, bend down to pick something, or simply sit down, you’re engaging your hip joint.

The hip is also one of the major weight-bearing joints in the body.

The Main Hip Muscles

In simple terms, the hip muscles are those muscle that control movement in the hip. The most important muscles of the hips include :

The Hip Flexors. These are a set of muscles in the upper thighs and pelvic region and help drive the knees and maintain proper thigh alignment when running.

Adductors. In charge of moving your legs inward and across your body. These contribute to knee stability. The adductors groups is made up of the adductor brevis, adductor longus, adductor magnus, pectineus, and gracilis.

Glutes. What’s commonly known as the butt muscles. The  gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, and tensor fasciae latae, make up the gluteal group. These muscles play an important role in almost everything from extension, moving the leg out to the side, to external rotation of the leg.

Why the Hips?
The hips play a significant role during almost every athletic activity.

If you do any serious runner, strong and functional hips are key for efficient and injury free training.

These muscles stabilize each leg throughout the stance phase of the running gait. That’s why increasing strength in that area is of utmost importance—especially if you’re serious about keeping stability in your running gait.

Limited function in this area can disrupt proper stability, leading all sorts of trouble, such as injuries and hindered running performance.

For instance, weakness in the hip flexors can results in hindered performance, bad form, and serious overuse injury.

Studies linking hip weakness to running injuries
Plenty of studies have looked into the link between hip weakness and overuse injuries, and the findings tend to back up the existence of a strong link.

Study 1
According to research published in the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, exaggerated hip rotation and inward collapse during the gait cycle may increase the risks of the Iliotibial band syndrome.

Study 2
A study published in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine found a strong association between weak hip muscles, including the hip abductor, adductor, and flexors, and a host of overuse injuries in the lower extremities.

Study 3
Overuse injuries like Runners’ knee have been linked to weaker hip muscles—including weakness in the hip abductor, adductor, and flexor, than those in a control group, according to a study in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine.

This proves that weak hips can drastically contribute to the onset of runner’s knee and other running injuries.

Study 4
According to another study published in Medicine & Science in Exercise & Sports, women who developed runner’s knee had greater pelvic instability in their gait than the injury-free runners.

Study 5
Study conducted by Frederickson et al. (2000), looked at 24 distance runners suffering from Iliotibial Band Syndrome, common in runners.

The researchers examined the athletes’ hip abductor strength of their injured limb in contrast to the healthy leg, and to that of a control group.

To nobody’s surprise, the researchers found that on average Gluteus medius strength was about 2 percent less on the injured limb.

The subjects were also put on a strength training program for six weeks. Following that strength training period, 22 out of the 24 injured runners were to able to return to training with no or little symptoms.

THE EVIDENCE IS OVERWHELMING!

For me, this is proof enough that every runner should be spending more time strengthening the hip muscles; otherwise, he (or she) will be setting the stage for a slew of injury.

The good news is, there are plenty of ways to prevent these injuries with certain hip strengthening exercises.

Prevention is ALWAYS better than cure.

To stay injury-free (or at least reduce the risks), you need to strengthen your hips, helping add more support and stability to the movement of the feet, ankles, and knees.

Without further ado, here are five exercises you need to do to strengthen your hip muscles for better and pain-free running.

Top Hip strengthening Exercises – A 30-Minute Hip Strength Workout for Runners

If you follow this simple hip training program, you’ll start noticing a major improvement in less than two to three weeks.

Start with one set of 8 reps and gradually build on that so that you are doing three to four sets of 12 to 15.

1. Single-Leg Bridge

Targeted Muscles: Glutes, Lower back, Calves, Quads, and Hamstrings.

Lie on your back with both knees bent and feet flat on the floor, arms pressed against the floor by your sides. Then, lift your hips, engage your thighs, and squeeze your glutes.

Next, raise your right leg in the air as straight as possible, keeping the foot flexed and extend it while raising your lower back and butt. Lift your hip as high as possible by engaging your abs and pressing down through the left heel.

Hold the position for 5 to 10 seconds; lower your hips to lightly touch the ground, then switches legs.

Number of sets: Three to four sets

Number of Repetitions: 8 to 12 reps.

2. Donkey Kicks

Targeted muscles: All three butt muscles — gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus, plus the lower back

Get on all fours, with your hands directly under your shoulders and knees under the hips, wrists aligned under shoulders. Next, draw your abdominals in you gradually lift your leg behind you until it’s almost parallel to the floor, with knee bent and foot flexed

Hold the position and pulsate your flexed foot toward the ceiling by engaging and squeezing your glutes. Keep the motion small and controlled with the muscle doing most of the work.

Focus on the muscle, and avoid using momentum. And make sure to keep your back straight and spine in a neutral position.

Last up, return to starting position to complete one rep.

Number of sets: Two to three sets

Number of Repetitions: 12 to 15 reps

3. Side-Lying Hip Abduction

Targeted muscles: Gluteus Maximus, Gluteus Medius, Gluteus Minimus and Tensor Fascia Lata.

Lie down on your side on the floor or the mat.

Make sure your hips and feet are stacked in a neutral position—Meaning right hip directly over the left hip (or the other way around). And keep your body in a straight line from ankles to head.

Next, place your lower hand on the floor in front for support, and upper hand is resting upon your upper hip. Keep your pelvis in a neutral position. Engage your core muscles to support and the spine.

Then, exhale and extend and raise your top leg off the lower while keeping the knee straight and foot in a neutral position. No hip rolling—forward or back—is allowed. Raise the top leg as high as possible.

Inhale and slowly return the leg to the starting position in a slow and controlled manner. After finishing the set, roll over and repeat on the other side.

Number of sets: Two to three sets

Number of Repetitions: 8 to 10 reps

4. Bird Dog Hip Strengthening Exercise

Targeted Muscles: Glutes, Lower Back Muscles, and Rectus Abdominis Muscle.

Get down on all fours on your hands and knees with palms flat on the floor and shoulder-width apart, with knees directly under the hips and hands beneath the shoulders. Make sure to keep your lower back and abdomen in a neutral position.

Next, engage your core to keep a good balance, raise your left arm and extend it straight out in front of your body as you raise your right leg and straighten it behind you. Hold the position for 3 to 5 seconds, return to starting position and repeat.

Number of sets: Two to three sets.

Number of reps: 6 to 8 reps.

5. Single-Leg Deadlift

Muscle engaged: Glutes, Hamstrings, Spinal Erectors, and Abs

Stand on your left leg with your right leg behind your and in the air. Then, while keeping your shoulders back and back straight throughout the movement, hinge forward at the waist and raise the right leg behind you, then reach your hands toward the ground.

Last up; come back to starting position by engaging your glutes and hamstring of the left leg.

For more challenge, use weight or a medicine ball for added resistance.

Number of sets: Three to four sets

Number of reps: 10 to 12.