Walnut Creek Chiropractor : Anatomy of Hip Flexor Tendonitis
The hip flexors are the group on muscles that are on the front of your thigh, above the knee. The big muscle right in the front that attaches to the top of your knee is the rectum femoris. This very superficial muscle originates on the anterior pelvis and is one of the main muscles when kicking or lifting the leg.
Another muscle working in this area is called the Sartorius. This muscle wraps from the anterior hip to the medial aspect of the lower knee. Since this muscle crosses the hip joint and the knee joint this works when lifting the leg and bending the knee at the same time, while rotating the leg outwards. Just like when you stop a soccer ball with the inside of your leg.
There are a series of other muscles that lay under these other two larger muscles and attach to the anterior pelvis including the pectineus, adductor longus, and gracilis, and they attach much closer to the medial pelvic and do not commonly get tendonitis.
Why Do You Get Hip Flexor Tendonitis?
Like most tendon inflammation, its due to over use. This happens when the muscle is fatigued or doesn’t have the energy to go on and your body and mind continues to push it. Think of cycling for long periods of time, dancing all night long, or swimming laps while kicking. Other ways this can happen is if you get a small injury to the area and don’t rehab it correctly and then do a regular type of work out such as swimming or cycling and this irritates and inflames it even more. This all can be continually prolonged and extremely painful with regular day movements such as getting in and out of the car, in and out of bed, and walking up stairs.
Other problems that can create tight hip flexors leading to anterior hip pain and hip flexor tendonitis is sitting for long periods of time. Such as a desk job accompanied with commuting and binge watching tv. This combined sitting effect is a very large culprit in our society. As the hips are constantly flexed, the muscles naturally become shorter, creating tight hip flexors which are easily injured when doing anything that extends the hip.
Hip Flexor Tendonitis Treatment Walnut Creek
1. Every treatment needs to begin with a full assessment of all the players involved. If the pelvis is not balanced that can contribute to the tension of the hip flexors that brought on the injury on the first place. Pelvic imbalance can come from tight hamstrings.
2. Correcting these things may require chiropractic adjustments to the pelvis and low back along with a stretching routine.
3. Followed by muscle stim to relax those muscles in the area.
4. Finally, Shockwave Therapy is utilized to break down the inflammation and activate the bodies natural response to repair.
Home Remedy Anterior Hip Pain
The best thing you can do for this injury is some of the most obvious. Stop doing what started it. Avoid activities that increase pain levels. Other really good things for an inflamed tendon are rest, ice, compression and elevation. Famously known as RICE. We all don’t have that kind of time in this busy world, so do you best, and continue to lightly stretch your glutes and your hamstrings to keep your pelvis from putting strain on the flexors.
If you’ve been dealing with this problem for more than you’d like to, we can help. We have all the tools in house to help speed up the process of anterior hip pain and hip flexor tendonitis.