Hip pain after squatting and long, steep descents.

Apart from a Doctor diagnosis, have you ever done IT band rolling? You use a foam roller (can also use a tennis ball) to provide deep massage to the side of the hip and down the side of the leg. It worked for me.

We have a resident PT on board here so you should hear something back shortly.

Thanks for the recommendation Dave. Eight months ago when this problem started to rear it's head after a snowshoeing trip where I was carrying more weight than I should have been I purchased a foam roller but have never used it because a friend messed up their IT band and I loaned it out. I should make a call and get that back in my hands.

I want to say that the pain is much more located on the front of my leg/hip and down into my groin with little pain being felt on the outside of my leg.

I'm coming from a lifetime of athletics and injuries so here's my advice……If you can afford it get a diagnosis and have your reg doctor refer you to a physical therapist familiar with athletic injuries. Gets it defined then you will get targeted help rather than a shotgun approach. The injury site may be too inflamed presently to use a roller on and it might need rest, ice, first and vitamin "I". And get a doctor to prescribe prescription Ibuprohin, it's much better and the dosages are much more consistent than over the counter. This way you will heal faster and have an arsenal of stretches and exercises to prevent more possibly serious long term damage.

I totally agree with above, a few years ago I had shooting hip pain. After a few Dr.'s appointments and 3 months of PT, I am able to manage my pain.

I have specific stretches and exercises that I have to do to manage the pain, but they do help, and it was at the direction of the PT.

I thought I had torn my hip flexor, the Dr. thought it may have been a groin injury but after analysis and looking deeper it looks like my particular case is FAI (Femoroacetabular Impingement) – My left hip pain was caused by my right hip's issue.

Yours may be something completely different.

I still have the hip pain, my HMO is very slow to see specialists, and with FAI they cut you up anyways I'm not in a rush for that. Stretching everyday on the trail helps.

Whenever I take breaks hiking I stop to stretch my hams by sitting on my butt and leaning forward. I do a sciatic stretch, a few hip flexor stretches, a few back stretches and it makes a HUGE difference, but all the stretches I have came from my PT.

"After doing either of the activities above I have a sharp shooting pain in my right hip socket that feels like it extends a little above the joint onto my lower right ab and shoots down the top of my leg all around the hip joint itself and into the groin. After aggravating it the easiest way for me to set off the pain would be to stand and then take a step to my right and put all my weight on my right leg."

That sounds like some pretty serious pain. You don't know what you're dealing with, so it would be the better part of wisdom to get a doctor's diagnosis before you try any home remedies that could make things worse.

Since it goes from under your rib to your groin and hip joint, perhaps you've injured your psoas muscle?

but as others have said a trip to a doctor specializing in sports medicine and a consult to PT will help get a diagnosis and proper course of treatment, ie ART.

The first thing to do, is to completely stop doing anything that aggravates it for about 4-6 weeks, then ease back into activities and see if it returns. Ive had many minor muscle pulls from weightlifting that took 6-8 wks or more to go away, but they always did. Some I dont know how happened, they just showed up one day. It happens as you get older.

Running to the Dr. for minor soft tissue injuries is basically throwing money away. They wont do anything but refer you to PT. There is nothing they can do. Your body heals itself. Unless something is torn to the point of needing repair, (>50%), Drs cant help, even if it makes one feel better to go see one.

You are describing a pain very similar to something I developed a couple years back.

First question I would ask is – are your gluteal muscles weak? I know you say you do squats but perhaps you have a severe muscle imbalance? I think it's very likely given your flexibility issue.

That was the cause of my own pain…a pain so intense I would crumple to the floor if I put my weight on my right hip. It turns out I had extremely tight hip flexors and weak glute muscles which were in turn making my hip joints very unstable. After following a program of glute strengthening and stretching for my hip flexors the pain was gone after several weeks.

There's a great series of videos on youtube from a PT based out of San Jose that address the issue specifically, but I can't seem to find the videos at the moment. When I have some time I'll see if I can locate them.

My glutes aren't as strong as my quads and my hamstrings are really tight and weak. I'm sure that I have muscle imbalances that are at least part of my problem. I've never been flexible, even as a baby according to my mother so flexibility is also a part of the problem.

I appreciate your response and would love to see those videos if you're able to find them! Thanks!

I started having hip pain and then a lot of stiffness in my hamstrings. I went to a physiotherapist for some stretching advice and he said – "you've got a lack of motion in your right hip it could be early osteoarthritis better check with your Dr. for an x-ray."

Sure enough :( I was diagnosed a year ago with osteoarthritis in both hips.

I had a similar pain once and tried something called psoas flossing. It worked great. I've never had the pain come back, either. I also really dialed in my squat form with a visit to a professional coach.