The upper part of the body and the lower one join through two joints that bind the pelvis to the legs through the heads of the two femurs, and these joints take the generic name of hip or, in anatomical terms, coxofemoral joint.

To allow the hip to function correctly , the bony cavity called the cup contains a structure of articular, fibrous cartilage; the same happens for the head of the femur, spheroid, also covered with cartilage and joined to the cup by a ligament. There are 5 coxofemoral ligaments, all obviously with different shape, position and function.

Hip rehabilitation is generally required after medium-small or serious injuries, or after surgery. Injuries at work, excessive and degenerative workloads, sports injuries, erosion and ligament or cartilage degeneration due to poor aging, a bad lifestyle or a non-ideal genetics .

We can say that the routine exercises of hip rehabilitation are among the simplest, within everyone’s reach, and feasible both indoors and outdoors, given that the few tools that may be needed can be found almost everywhere.

Some hip rehabilitation techniques

In addition to rehabilitating the individual ligaments and keeping the environment of the cartilage capsule healthy (not acidic and not decalcified), we must restore strength, mass and tone to the muscles following rest or medical intervention .

Here is a series of exercises that can be done in this regard.

> We will find a surface slightly raised from the ground , for a height that can vary between 10 and 20 centimeters at least at the beginning. A sidewalk can be ideal for this purpose. We will place the foot relative to the hip that has to work on this surface and we will force ourselves by lifting the other leg from the ground and then come back down after a short suspension pause. This exercise can be repeated and implemented by increasing the height of the lift depending on the strength of our muscles and ligaments.

> To restore mobility to the femoral head in the cup cavity or acetabulum, we must slowly restore abduction and adduction movements . Here is a simple exercise: we will use a support such as a chair or the back of a bench and we will place the hand relative to the hip that has to work. After finding support we will lift the leg off the ground until the knee is bent 90 degrees frontally. Pause, return to a natural resting position, repetition.

> We now describe two exercises that we can do lying down , in a comfortable position, perhaps at the very beginning of our rehabilitation therapy. Lying down and facing face up with the legs extended, we will slide slowly and gently, careful not to force, the heel of the leg to be rehabilitated towards the glueteo, in a continuous and repeated movement. Another exercise to restore tone to the muscles consists in putting a thickness under the knee, say a pillow for example, and lifting the foot off the ground and then bringing it back down.

> If we are comfortable working lying down, here are two more comfortable comfortable exercises . The first consists in lifting the foot from the ground a few centimeters and opening the leg sideways as long as it feels possible without causing pain. This is a great abductive and adductive exercise. Another, feasible starting from the same relaxed position, is to place an object such as a pillow or a soft ball between the knees, and tighten gradually increasing. The strength of our grip will tell us the level of rehabilitation we have achieved.

> Here is a rotation exercise that we can do standing , just to give more dynamism. We will do it close to a wall, for safety, in case of instability and risk of loss of balance. All very simple: we will cross our legs passing the leg that has to work behind the healthy leg and slowly we will bend the upper body sideways towards the healthy leg causing a healthy stretching of the iliotibial band .

> Let’s go back to a lying position, this time on our stomach and legs extended. We will now lift the foot off the ground by bending the knee back to 90 degrees. Exercise to be done slowly to get the glutes to work and, as we improve, we can add some ankle weights.