Yoga for Hip Pain

Yoga for Hip Pain

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The age-old health practice of yoga can help relieve hip pain, doctors say, because it can help strengthen and stretch muscles that are important in supporting aching joints.

"Some of my patients enjoy yoga as a healthy exercise," says Steven Morgan, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Denver Health Medical Center and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. "It has to do with maintaining flexibility of the joint and strengthening the muscles around the joint. The literature also says the meditation and biofeedback contained in yoga are excellent ways to manage pain for some patients."

Yoga for Hip Pain Can Help

Besides using yoga for hip pain, this ancient mind-body therapy can help improve an overall sense of well-being, lung capacity, and body composition. Yoga for hip pain helps because it:

• Supports the joints. The fine movements and exacting poses required by yoga for hip pain help strengthen the small muscles used to move and stabilize your hip joint. The better supported the joint is, the less stress is placed on it by your own body weight — and the better it feels.
• Stretches the muscles. Flexibility can give you a greater range of motion, making your hip joint more usable and free of pain. Yoga for hip pain is one of the best stretches exercises around.
• Opens up the joints. Chronic hip pain can lessen range of motion, restricting the hip joint and placing more weight on a smaller portion of the joint. Yoga for hip pain opens up the hip joint, spreading the load across a greater surface area as your body's natural range of motion is restored.

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Types of Yoga for Hip Pain

Experts recommend that people using yoga for hip pain perform more gentle forms of the therapy that focus on postures and breathing.

• Hatha yoga. This is one of the most popular forms of yoga in the United States, and the type most associated with yoga for hip pain. People participating in Hatha yoga slowly perform a series of gentle stretches, flowing calmly and effortlessly between each pose. As participants perform yoga for hip pain, they breathe slowly and deeply, an act of meditation that relieves stress and can help alleviate chronic strain.
• Bikram yoga. Also known as hot yoga, Bikram yoga can help with hip pain. A series of postures are practiced in a room heated to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat helps warm muscles, ligaments, and tendons, allowing them to stretch more easily.

Doctors do not recommend the more strenuous forms of yoga that focus on strength training over meditation and gentle stretching. Ashtanga yoga, or power yoga, is one such form, providing a physically intense workout in which the person constantly changes positions. Iyengar yoga focuses on holding positions for long periods of time, an activity that might not be good for your hip pain.

Getting Started With Yoga for Hip Pain

Before you start any form of yoga for hip pain, you should first talk with your doctor or specialist about what would be right for you. Different types of hip pain require different therapies, and yoga could prove counterproductive to your pain-relief efforts. "I would encourage people to see an orthopedic surgeon before embarking upon an activity," Dr. Morgan says.

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