Strong hip abductors—balance-boosting muscles at the sides of your pelvis—won’t earn you compliments at the gym. But a new study adds to the evidence they help keep you running injury-free.
Australian researchers measured hip strength in 50 people with gluteal tendinopathy—damage to the tendon connecting the glute muscles to the hip bone—and 50 injury-free controls. Those with the injury had weaker hip abductors, a group of muscles tasked with stabilizing the pelvis as you propel forward.
Though study participants’ symptoms struck only one hip, their muscle strength came up lacking on both sides, said lead study author Kim Allison of the department of physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne. Her team’s results were published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
Because the study only looked at a single point in time, researchers can’t say for sure whether the weakness caused or resulted from the tendon injury. But Allison said it’s possible weak hip abductors came first, causing the pelvis to drop and shift and placing added strain on the surrounding tissues.
Stride after stride, this pattern “results in compression of the gluteal tendons against the greater trochanter—the bony prominence at the side of the hip where these tendons insert,” she told Runner’s World Newswire in an email. Over time, the rubbing breaks down the tendon, causing pain and leading to a full-blown injury.
Symptoms of gluteal tendinopathy include hip pain when walking or climbing stairs and a tender spot at the point of the hip bone. If you feel them, see a health care professional for evaluation and treatment. “Once the tendon is injured, there are implications for the amount and timing of load associated with strengthening exercises,” Allison said.
For healthy runners, the results bolster the theory that staying strong through the hips, glutes, and core keeps your pelvis aligned properly, lightening the load all the way down through your knees and ankles, Allison said. Try our hip strengthening routine to shore up your stabilizers.
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
