Hip abductors help people to stand on uneven surfaces with greater ease, but when their strength weakens they may place additional strain on other muscles or joints that take on too much work and become overburdened and stressed out.
Researchers studied hip abductor strength among older individuals who were at risk of falling and discovered that testing hip abductor strength while standing was both feasible and reliable.
Strengthening Your Hip Muscles
Hip abductor muscles are crucial to movement and balance, yet often neglected when strength training. Strong hip abductors help prevent hip and knee injuries for runners and cyclists; exercising these muscles with bodyweight exercises alone or using resistance bands may increase challenge faster and help strengthen them even faster.
When considering hip abductor exercises, one might immediately think of traditional gym machines which involve sitting upright and pressing outward with your knees. Unfortunately, this movement doesn’t provide much in terms of functionality for your hips; “very few scenarios exist where simultaneously flexing hips and pressing out with knees occur in life”, Tumminello emphasizes. For maximum benefit he suggests standing movements that target these same muscles to build them instead.
One of the easiest and most effective exercises to strengthen hip abductors is side stepping. Aim for equal steps on each leg for an even workout; this movement also targets your thigh adductor muscles on the front of your hips.
Another variation on this exercise is the hip-width lunge. Take the same number of steps, but keep knees closer together so as to emphasize abductors more directly. Add in an optional lateral leg raise which will further target hip abductors while simultaneously improving balance.
Add a mini-band to your hip abductor training for an added challenge, helping to gain strength faster without undue strain on joints. Simply position the band around your right ankle, assume a hip-width stance, step left with your right foot for slight abduction, repeat for about 10 reps then switch legs and repeat!
Stability
Hip abductors and adductors work together to control the medial (inward) collapse of the femur during gait’s stance phase, helping keep your body steady when standing or running. Running requires repeated single-leg stances that require abductors to keep knees and hips aligned during these movements; without enough strength in these abductor muscles when running, your body could collapse toward one leg that’s off the ground when you lose balance and fall over.
Studies have demonstrated that hip abductor weakness is one of the primary risk factors for falls among older adults, thus suggesting that physiotherapy programs that focus on increasing hip abductor strength could reduce falls while increasing function and safety among this population.
However, many of these studies employ different methodologies and the results are difficult to compare across studies. For example, tests used to measure hip abductor muscle strength vary from study to study and few evaluate both GM and TFL simultaneously.
One study compared the results of hip abductor strength tests conducted in side-lying position to that same tool used to assess hip abductor strength in standing position, finding that standing test led to greater neuromuscular activation for both GM and TFL muscles and more prominent activation in lateral knee raise of top leg in comparison with side-lying test.
One study examined the reliability of an abductor strength test performed using a hand-held dynamometer in older adults in standing position, using hand-held dynamometry. They discovered that it was feasible, quick, and had excellent inter-rater reliability for both overall group as well as fallers vs non-fallers subgroups.
Trendelenburg testing can also help measure hip abductor strength. This involves standing with one leg against a wall, flexing at the knee to 90 degrees, and lifting off one leg from the ground. As this may be difficult for those experiencing hip pain or weakness, physical therapy professionals are available to guide clients through this process and offer support as needed.
Flexibility
Flexibility refers to the ability of muscles and joints to move smoothly through their full range of motion without stiffness or pain, enabling movements to take place smoothly and efficiently while decreasing injuries. Stretching is a great way to build flexibility; many people incorporate stretching as part of their routine. Hip abductor muscles play an especially vital role in maintaining flexibility as they help control frontal plane pelvic movement as well as provide stability during weight-bearing activities like walking and running.
Flexibility can be measured through various tests and by watching how your body moves throughout daily life. One popular assessment method is called sit and reach: lying back on your back while bending at the knees to touch your toes with ease indicates your lower body flexibility.
Reaching for your toes may be an indicator that you aren’t very flexible, though measuring this could also use a flexible instrument called a goniometer, which measures angles by comparing their range with accepted norms. While such instruments do exist, their use requires training.
Flexibility’s relationship to health outcomes is less straightforward than for other fitness components such as muscular endurance and cardiovascular endurance, perhaps because its effects are more specific to individual joints than systemic health markers or outcomes. Furthermore, flexibility may be caused by complex interactions among multiple musculoskeletal factors than by just one single factor such as muscle strength or joint mobility alone.
Note that flexibility and stability have an interdependent relationship; too much flexibility may not be good for your health. Too much flexibility may lead to instability and increase your risk of injury; therefore it is wise to work with a personal trainer, physical therapist, or sports medicine physician when trying to increase flexibility.
Balance
Strong hip abductors increase your odds of stability when standing and moving, which could prevent injuries as well as increase athletic performance. Your hips are constantly shifting to stay balanced during activities; strengthening them is therefore vitally important. Strengthening them may even prevent “knock knee,” whereby the knees move inward when walking or running and cause pain to both back and knees – strengthening them may therefore help prevent such problems from arising. A physical therapist may suggest strengthening them as a preventive measure.
Studies have demonstrated the essentiality of hip abductor muscles to balancing and mobility function regardless of age, with strength and neuromuscular activation directly correlating with task performance for balance or mobility tasks. Unfortunately, however, studies are somewhat mixed when identifying specific hip abductor strength characteristics or musculoskeletal features which affect these functions.
This systematic review examined the association between hip abductor strength, muscle structure and balance/mobility function among younger, middle-aged, and older adults. To conduct their analysis, authors narratively synthesized results from 59 research articles covering participants aged from young adults up to the elderly.
Dynamic and induced hip abduction tasks had the most significant effect on balance performance of all static balance tasks, possibly due to their higher hip abductor neuromuscular activation rate. According to research findings, dynamic and induced hip abduction exercises combined together may improve balance and mobility in healthy individuals.
One way of performing hip abduction exercises is using a basic hip abduction machine with pads that rest on your outer thighs and weight resistance provided by resistance bands on these pads, pushing against them with weight resistance to work your hip abductors – targeting the tensor fasciae latae, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus muscles involved in abduction. For an added challenge try cable standing hip abduction which requires legs in a neutral position (no lean forward or backward) rather than leaning forward or backward.
