Can Walking Improve or Worsen Hip Pain?

If you have pain, chances are you have wondered whether you should take a complete rest at home or if you can continue walking around and take part in your everyday life. It’s a question that regularly comes from differing opinions on what you should do when you are experiencing such hip pain. Someone might have told you that movement is actually good for your joint, while another may have told you to rest until the pain goes away.

Well, the truth is a little more complicated: walking can either be good or bad for your hips, depending on numerous factors. Our hip, after all, is a very complex joint, and whether you should walk depends on where your current pain is coming from. With all these things in mind, let’s take a deeper look at how walking affects your hip joint, when it can help, and when it may be time to slow down.

Can walking help relieve certain types of hip pain?

When you talk to a hip doctor about your hip pain, they will most likely ask you to engage in some movement every day. They suggest this because not only can completely stopping activity allow stiffness to set in, but your supporting muscles will also become weaker. This, in turn, can make even ordinary movements feel like a task.

Walking, while placing a reasonable amount of demand on your muscles, can give your hip joint a chance to move through a simple and low-impact pattern to stay active. It is particularly useful for osteoarthritis, in which the cartilage around your joint gradually withers away with time. When that happens, people tend to develop stiffness, reduced mobility, and experience pain that becomes more noticeable after sitting or resting. Going for a walk, even for a little bit, can also support circulation of blood in the body without putting the same impact on your joints as running or jumping. If you are someone whose hip quickly becomes stiff after small periods of inactivity, a short, comfortable walk can make a world of difference in how comfortable your joint feels afterwards.

When can walking worsen your hip pain?

As you might have already guessed, walking can very easily become your enemy when the workload for your joint is beyond what it and the surrounding muscles can take on. For conditions like muscle strains, tendon problems, bursitis, and repetitive strain injuries, walking will only irritate the area more than keep it healthy. You will also need to pay extra attention if your pain builds up the longer you walk or worsens quite a bit after settling down. The reason why is that pain can begin to appear during activities and become more pervasive in genuinely serious conditions like avascular necrosis.

You can also experience problems from the way you walk as well. Long distances, prolonged periods on your feet, climbing hills or walking on uneven surfaces can very easily increase the demand on your hip. Plus, if you have started limping to avoid pain, it may be best to take a break - you are basically placing your weight incorrectly and running the risk of additional strain on the joint.

Your footwear is also an important factor to consider, as shoes that provide poor support can affect how well your weight is spread through the legs and hips. If you are already limping or have an altered walking pattern, the last thing you want is a bad pair that will only aggravate the problem.

How should you walk if you have hip pain?

If your condition allows you to walk, you should first start with an amount that your hip can actually handle instead of just choosing some arbitrary distance to cover. If you can walk even for 10 minutes and feel fine afterwards, it is way better than going for a 30-minute walk that leaves you limping and resting for the rest of the day. If a longer walk is too much in one go, there is no reason you cannot split it into shorter sessions throughout the day. Plus, remember, you can always increase your time and distance gradually as your tolerance and condition improve. You should also try to stick to reasonably flat and predictable surfaces, especially if uneven ground is bringing discomfort in your joints. Supportive footwear can also help if you already have problems with your walking mechanics.

You will also need to modify other activities in your life around walking if you are into running, intense training, or any other high-impact activity, and they are aggravating your head. Consider switching temporarily to something gentler, like swimming or cycling. It can help you remain active without placing the same load on the joint.

Obviously enough, there is also a point where you will need to stop experimenting if your underlying pain refuses to settle. If you're already at that point, seek help from a hip specialist in London who can assess your movement, medical history, symptoms, and all, and determine whether the pain is muscular, tendon-related, or coming from inside the joint itself.

When should you stop walking and see a doctor?

As mentioned throughout, you need to understand the difference between discomfort that feels manageable and pain that clearly indicates something serious is happening with your joint. If your pain is becoming worse with time and is starting to interfere with even basic activities like climbing stairs, getting out of a chair, or walking normally, you need to get yourself checked by a good doctor.

There are also certain signs that you need to watch out for during recovery. A sudden inability to bear weight, for one, is particularly important. Severe pain that follows after a fall or some other injury can be an indication of a fracture or major joint damage. Office deformity, numbness, or tingling after an injury can also point towards some complications with the joint.

You should also rush to your nearest A&E if fevers, chills, unusual warmth, or visible swelling accompany your hip pain. A painful, hot joint accompanied by these symptoms can indicate infection, such as septic arthritis, which will require urgent treatment.

Let your hip pain guide the amount you walk

At the end of the day, walking does not have to disappear from your routine just because your hip hurts completely. It should only be taken into consideration if your situation calls for it. For some people, walking is actually part of the solution when stiffness, weakness, and diminished mobility are helping cause the problem. For others, however, the same activity may need to be reduced or temporarily replaced with something better, especially if you are dealing with an injury or a structural issue.

All that is to say, you can think of walking as something adaptable and adjustable rather than an activity that demands an all-or-nothing type of decision. If your pain is limiting what you can do here, you can avoid walking through the problem and focus more on identifying what the actual cause of it is. Don’t forget that persistent hip pain is not something you should surrender to and learn to live around. With a few simple adjustments, along with rest and other treatments if needed, you can very easily overcome it and return to your everyday life.