Can deadlifts cause hip pain?

Should you keep deadlifting, modify the session or rest?

You can consider a modified session when symptoms are mild and improving and ordinary movement remains comfortable. Worsening pain or function is a reason to stop the provoking exercise and reassess. Hip pain guidance supports activity modification and tolerable movement, but the right exercise depends on the cause. (NHS, APTA)

Use the following as a conservative monitoring framework, not a test that proves the hip is uninjured.

| What happens | What to do | |---|---| | Symptoms are mild, improving and don’t build during an easier version | Keep the session reduced. Check your response afterward before planning an increase. | | Pain appears at a particular depth, load or point in the session | Change that variable. If the easier version still aggravates it, leave deadlifts out that day. | | Pain escalates, becomes sharp or makes you shift away from the painful side | End the set. Don’t keep adding weight to test whether it will disappear. | | Walking, stairs or sleep are worse afterward | Don’t progress the next session. Repeated or worsening interference with normal activity warrants assessment. |

The next morning is a useful checkpoint, not a universal 24 hour safety deadline. Compare with your condition before the session: pain, stiffness and how ordinary activities feel. Hip guidelines support tracking symptoms and function; they don’t validate a single next day cutoff for every diagnosis. (APTA hip pain guideline)

Resting from deadlifts also doesn’t have to mean resting from everything. Keep movement that remains tolerable, without using a different workout to reproduce the same pain. (NHS)

Why might deadlifting provoke hip pain?

Deadlifting places substantial demand on the hip muscles. In a study of 28 trained adults, deadlifts produced greater hip extensor joint moments and hip positive joint work than back squats at 70% and 85% of the maximum weight participants could lift once. Those are measures of mechanical demand, not injury risk. (Hip and knee kinetics study)

Think about what changed before the pain appeared. Did you add pulling sessions or return to heavy lifting after time off? Perhaps you added running while keeping the same gym volume. These are useful details for an assessment. They don’t prove that training load is the entire explanation. Hip pain guidelines call for history and examination because several conditions can produce overlapping symptoms. (APTA)

A lighter pull that still leaves you walking worse afterward hasn’t earned a heavier session. The point of changing the exercise is to find an exposure you tolerate, then check whether that response holds beyond the set.

Does the location of hip pain tell you what is injured?

The location helps an assessment, but it cannot reliably identify the injured structure on its own. Hip region pain can come from the joint, surrounding muscles or tendons, or another area such as the lower back. (Mayo Clinic hip pain causes, APTA)

Record the location precisely and what brings it on:

• Front of the hip or deep groin: note whether the start position, sitting, rotation or walking reproduces it.
• Inner thigh: note whether a wide stance or pushing sideways is provocative.
• Outside of the hip: note whether stairs, single leg loading or lying on that side is uncomfortable.
• Buttock or back of the upper thigh: note whether hinging, sitting or accompanying back symptoms change the pain.

These are observations to bring to a clinician, not a way to label yourself with a strain, impingement or labral tear. Noticing pain during a deadlift doesn’t establish whether the lift caused an injury or aggravated an existing problem. (APTA)

What can you change if sumo deadlifts hurt?

For mild, improving symptoms appropriate for a modification trial, you can test changes to stance width, toe angle or starting height at a reduced load. These are options to test, not established corrections for your pain. APTA guidance supports modifying activity according to symptoms and examination findings; it does not prescribe one sumo setup for every hip problem. (APTA hip pain guideline)

Sumo and conventional pulling distribute demand differently. Biomechanical research reports differences in hip and knee demands across movement planes, but it doesn’t establish that one stance is safer for every hip. (Sumo and conventional deadlift biomechanics)

You could test a narrower stance at a light load. If the bottom position is the problem, an elevated start is another option. Change one thing at a time so you can tell what affected the response. Neither adjustment is a guaranteed fix or proof of safety.

Don’t force your feet wider because that is your competition stance. If the setup itself hurts or you shift away from one side, stop that trial. A competition position can remain a future goal without being today’s training position.

What can you change if Romanian deadlifts hurt?

Reducing the load or shortening the descent gives you a modification to test before trying to reach deeper. An RDL starts from standing, and reaching the floor is not its required endpoint. (Romanian deadlift guidance)

If symptoms appear only near the bottom, an earlier stopping point may change the response. Keep the weight controlled and close, then check whether the shorter range actually helps during the session and afterward. These adjustments don’t establish that the movement is appropriate for an unidentified injury. (Hospital for Special Surgery lifting guidance, APTA)

An RDL is not automatically a rehabilitation exercise, even if you perform it with less weight than your conventional deadlift. The variations have different muscular and joint demands, and either may provoke symptoms. (Conventional and Romanian deadlift comparison)

What about the rest of your training?

You may be able to keep parts of your sport that remain tolerable, but removing deadlifts doesn’t make every other activity appropriate. Hip rehabilitation guidance recommends matching activity to symptoms, function and participation demands. (APTA)

These are practical applications of that principle, not validated return to sport tests:

| Your training | What to check | |---|---| | Running | Assess running separately from lifting. Don’t progress a run that makes you limp or leaves ordinary walking worse. | | Hyrox | Look at running and stations separately. Reduce or omit a station that reproduces symptoms, even if the rest feels manageable. | | Climbing | If a high step or wide position provokes pain, choose moves that avoid that demand. Don’t force the position to test mobility. | | Pickleball or tennis | Check lateral movement and direction changes. Comfortable forward walking alone doesn’t answer whether court movement is tolerable. | | Cycling | Check the riding position, resistance and duration. Cycling is an option only if your hip tolerates it. | | Strength training | Keep tolerable exercises, but don’t assume a squat, lunge or different hinge will automatically be comfortable. |

Account for the whole training day. If you change the deadlift session, run distance and court time together, it becomes difficult to know which exposure your hip tolerated. A brief training log can make the next decision less speculative.

How quickly should you build back to normal deadlifts?

Build back according to improving symptoms and function, changing one variable at a time. The evidence does not support a universal weekly percentage increase or return date for unexplained hip pain. Hip guidelines support individualized exercise and progression, although recommendations for diagnosed conditions such as hip osteoarthritis don’t automatically apply to your symptoms. (APTA hip pain guideline, 2025 hip osteoarthritis guideline)

A practical sequence is:

1. Find an easier version that doesn’t produce escalating symptoms or worse ordinary function afterward.
2. Repeat that exposure to see whether the response is consistent.
3. Change one element, such as range, repetitions or load.
4. Compare symptoms during the session, later that day and the next morning.
5. Hold or reduce the exposure if the trend worsens.

Suppose you shortened the range and reduced the load. Restoring both together makes the result harder to interpret. Keep one stable while testing the other.

There is also no supported blanket prescription here for sets and repetitions. A diagnosed tendon problem and unexplained deep groin pain may need different management. Persistent uncertainty is a reason for an assessment, not a reason to keep experimenting indefinitely. (APTA)

When should you get hip pain looked at?

Get assessed when hip pain is worsening, keeps returning, affects normal activities or sleep, or hasn’t improved after about 2 weeks of home care. You don’t need to wait 2 weeks if function is already affected. Persistent morning stiffness or declining mobility also warrants assessment. (NHS)

Seek emergency care for severe pain after an injury, inability to walk or bear weight, or new numbness, tingling or loss of sensation after injury. Sudden severe pain without an injury, or a hot, swollen hip with fever or feeling unwell, needs urgent assessment. These situations are outside a training modification plan. (NHS)

What does GoodMetal’s hip strength and mobility plan include?

GoodMetal’s hip strength and mobility program was built by licensed physical therapists with 10+ years of experience each. They designed the exercises, weekly sessions and how the phases progress. That gives you a structure for pacing the work and deciding when to hold back as you move through the plan.

It is a general program template, not a plan built specifically for your hip pain. Its exercise choices don’t establish that those movements are appropriate for your symptoms.

The published program includes:

| Program area | Exercises in GoodMetal’s plan | |---|---| | Glute strength | Hip thrust, lateral step down, side lying hip abduction, split squat, Pallof press | | Single leg strength | Single leg Romanian deadlift, step up, reverse lunge, glute bridge march, suitcase carry | | Mobility and movement | Hip rotation mobility, Cossack squat, goblet squat, lateral lunge, activity specific exposure |

Two examples from GoodMetal’s program:

• Suitcase carry: 3 sets of 30 seconds, with 60 seconds of rest.
• Hip rotation mobility: 3 sets of 30 seconds, with 30 seconds of rest.

These are examples from the general template, not a prescription for your hip pain.

GoodMetal also provides a large guided exercise video library, proactive plan adjustments and care coordination. The videos give you demonstrations to follow alongside the program. None of these features diagnoses unexplained hip pain or replaces an individual examination.

For your next session, decide what you’re testing before you warm up: a lighter load, a shorter range or a different activity. Record what happens during it and afterward. If ordinary function is deteriorating, make the next step an assessment instead of another loading experiment.