Why does my hip hurt when I run?

Can I keep running, or should I rest?

Stop a run that makes pain climb or changes how you move. Mild, stable symptoms may allow modified activity, depending on the cause, but there is no universal pain score that clears an undiagnosed painful hip for running. Mayo Clinic guidance and the international hip rehabilitation consensus support using symptoms, function and assessment to guide decisions.

If you have any of the warning signs in the urgent care section below, stop running and get medical help. Otherwise, check how your hip responds before, during and after activity:

1. Before training, note how the hip feels during ordinary walking. If you’re already limping or walking hurts, don’t use a run to test it.
2. During training, watch the trend. Pain that builds as you continue is a reason to stop. Changing your stride to protect the hip also means the session needs to end.
3. Afterward and the next morning, compare pain and everyday movement with your starting point. A worse response means you should hold off on increasing activity and reconsider the load.

These checks help you describe what happened and judge tolerance. They cannot identify the injured structure or exclude a bone stress injury. The hip pain clinical practice guideline recommends assessing symptoms and physical function together.

Rest can mean removing the activity that provokes pain while keeping activity that is comfortable and appropriate for the suspected problem. It does not automatically mean stopping all exercise. If bone stress injury is suspected, however, activity restrictions and return to impact need clinical guidance. AAOS explains activity restrictions and recovery in its stress fracture guidance.

What usually causes hip pain during or after running?

A recent training change is worth looking at. More mileage, faster intervals, hills or insufficient recovery can increase demands on tissues. That makes overload a plausible explanation, but it doesn’t prove what caused your pain. Browning’s clinical review of hip and pelvis injuries in runners describes this mechanism.

The range of possible causes explains why the same stretch list won’t suit every painful hip:

| Where or how it hurts | What that information can tell you | |---|---| | Front of the hip or deep in the groin | Muscles and tendons may be involved, but joint and bone problems also need consideration. | | Outside of the hip | Lateral hip structures, including gluteal tendons, may be involved. Location alone cannot confirm this. | | Buttock or back of the hip | The source may be local or may involve the back or pelvis. | | Catching, locking or restricted motion | These symptoms deserve assessment for a possible joint problem. |

These categories come from ACR guidance and the 2023 hip pain clinical practice guideline. Use them to describe your symptoms to a clinician. Several conditions can produce pain in the same area.

What does pain on one side mean?

Pain on one side does not, by itself, prove that one hip is weak, tight or out of position. Muscle, tendon, joint, bone and referred pain possibilities still need consideration. ACR hip pain guidance

Write down the side and exact location, then describe what happens: when pain starts, whether it builds during the run, and how it feels afterward. Include any catching, restricted movement or change in walking. Those details help the clinician assessing you understand what happens when you run. The hip pain guideline recommends a structured history and physical examination.

Don’t automatically add extra repetitions to the painful side. Rehabilitation should respond to assessment findings; pain on one side is not enough information to choose the exercise or its dose. International consensus on exercise for hip related pain

What if I’ve just started running?

If you’ve just started running, reduce the activity that brings on pain and look at what changed. You don’t have to accept hip pain as the entry fee. Running injuries can follow excessive mechanical stress and inadequate recovery, but being a beginner does not establish the diagnosis. Clinical review of running related hip injuries

Look at the whole week. Did you start running more often while keeping heavy leg sessions? Add hills and increase distance together? Turn every short run into a hard effort?

If symptoms are mild and you have no warning signs, one way to apply activity modification is to undo the most recent aggravating change. If hills provoke symptoms, leave hills out. If discomfort appears as a run gets longer, reduce the duration instead of repeatedly testing the same distance. The hip pain guideline supports activity modification, but the amount you need to change depends on the problem.

Keep a simple record of what you did and how the hip responded, including the next morning. If the same pain keeps returning despite reducing the workload, arrange an assessment.

When should I stop and get my hip looked at?

Stop impact exercise and seek urgent medical assessment for progressively worsening, localized hip or groin pain, particularly if it starts affecting walking, rest or sleep. A bone stress injury is one possible cause. An early X ray can be normal, so a normal result does not always end the investigation. BMJ guidance on bone stress injuries

Other symptoms need urgent or emergency care:

• Go to an emergency department after major trauma, with a visible deformity, or if a fracture or dislocation is suspected. Sudden inability to bear weight, especially after an injury, also needs emergency assessment. ACR acute hip pain guidance and NHS hip pain pathway
• Seek urgent medical care for sudden severe hip pain, inability to move the joint, or severe pain with fever or feeling very unwell. A joint infection is one possible urgent cause. NHS septic arthritis guidance
• Seek urgent medical care for new significant leg weakness or progressive numbness. Go to an emergency department immediately for new loss of bladder or bowel control, difficulty starting urination, or numbness around the genitals or bottom. These can signal a spinal emergency. NHS guidance on neurological warning signs

Arrange a clinical assessment if pain persists or repeatedly returns despite reducing activity, interferes with everyday life, or comes with catching, locking or substantial loss of motion. Hip pain clinical practice guideline

Mention previous stress fractures, low bone density, inadequate fueling or menstrual changes. These can matter when evaluating possible bone stress injury, particularly after a rapid training increase. They are reasons to get assessed, not a way to diagnose yourself. BMJ guidance

Should I stretch my hip?

Stretching may help if an assessment finds a movement restriction worth addressing. It isn’t the right starting point for every painful hip. The hip pain clinical practice guideline supports choosing mobility and flexibility work from examination findings. A JAMA review reports that stretching has not generally been shown to reduce running injuries.

Hip flexor stretches, figure four stretches and butterfly stretches appear frequently in exercise articles. Their popularity doesn’t tell you whether your hip needs them.

If stretching is appropriate for the problem being treated, keep it tolerable. Don’t force a position that reproduces sharp or deep joint pain. Feeling looser briefly also does not establish that the next run is safe. Exercise selection still depends on the suspected cause and your response. Hip pain clinical practice guideline

Which exercises might help?

An assessment can help you choose exercises that fit the cause of your pain. Those might include strengthening, mobility work or movement practice. The international consensus supports exercise based treatment for many active adults with hip related pain while acknowledging uncertainty about the best frequency, intensity, volume and progression.

Much of the rehabilitation research combines different hip diagnoses, so its findings may not apply equally to every runner or every source of hip pain. That limits how confidently anyone can turn the evidence into one exercise routine for everyone. International consensus

What if you already lift? Being able to squat heavily does not tell you which rehabilitation exercise is appropriate, or whether more exercise is the right next step.

For the active adults covered by the consensus, exercise based care is generally recommended over at least 3 months. That is a treatment timeframe for a defined clinical population. It does not predict that your hip will take 3 months to recover or give you permission to train through unexplained pain. International consensus

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

GoodMetal’s programs are built by licensed physical therapists with 10+ years of experience each. They designed the structure every plan follows: the exercises, weekly sessions and how the phases progress.

For someone using the hip strength and mobility plan, that means the exercises come within a session schedule and a progression through phases. You have a structure for pacing the work and deciding when to hold back, instead of having to assemble a routine from individual videos. The plan remains a general template; it was not built from an examination of you.

The published program includes:

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

Two doses specified in the program are:

• 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.

Those are doses from GoodMetal’s plan, not a prescription for your hip pain.

GoodMetal pairs the program structure with guided exercise videos, proactive plan adjustments and care coordination. The videos demonstrate the movements, while the program lays out the sessions and phase progression. These features do not establish a diagnosis or replace an examination when one is indicated.

What about my other training?

Consider the activity that brings on symptoms across your whole week. Reducing running while keeping painful leg sessions may leave the hip exposed to the same demands. The hip pain clinical practice guideline supports activity modification based on assessment and tolerance.

For runners who also lift or cycle, these are practical ways to apply that principle:

| Activity | What to reconsider while the hip is irritated | |---|---| | Running | Remove provoking hills or speed work and reduce duration. Don’t keep the original mileage target at the expense of your stride. | | Lifting | Reduce load or range in movements that reproduce pain. Don’t force squat or lunge depth through a painful pinch. | | Cycling | Use it as an alternative only if it is comfortable during and afterward. Lower impact does not guarantee that the hip tolerates the position or workload. |

These examples need to fit the suspected problem. When clinically appropriate, low impact conditioning can help maintain activity during recovery. Suspected bone stress injury needs a clinician’s guidance on which alternatives are suitable. Sports medicine guidance on stress fractures

How fast should I build back to running?

Build back according to the diagnosis and your response to each increase. The evidence does not support one percentage or timetable for every painful hip, and the international consensus identifies optimal exercise dose and progression as unresolved questions.

Once returning to running is appropriate, use a sequence you can evaluate:

1. Establish tolerable everyday activity first. After a significant injury, follow the clearance criteria given for that injury.
2. Start with a reduced running exposure. Short easy running or alternating walking and running may be options, depending on the assessment.
3. Check symptoms afterward and the next morning before increasing. If the response is worse, hold off on progressing.
4. Keep other training variables steady while you test an increase. Adding distance and hills together makes the response harder to interpret.
5. If symptoms return, stop progressing and reassess the load. Repeated recurrence deserves clinical assessment. Worsening localized pain or pain affecting walking, rest or sleep needs urgent medical assessment.

This sequence helps you observe your response; it cannot supply clearance or a recovery schedule. After a bone stress injury, AAOS recommends a gradual return after medical clearance. A generic weekly percentage cannot replace that process.

Before your next session, decide what activity you’re reducing and what symptom will make you stop. Check how ordinary walking feels afterward and the next morning. If you can’t walk comfortably or the pain keeps coming back, make the next step an assessment.

This article is for general education and is not a diagnosis or an individualized treatment plan.