Every hip surgery potentially has its own movement protocol. Is it a labral tear? Total hip replacement? Resurfacing? Regardless, here are four tips that apply to any hip surgery.

1. Check out your heeled footwear (passive):

   When you put a one-inch wedge under one side of a bookshelf, the entire bookshelf would lean. The same happens to our bodies when we put a heeled shoe under our foot. Though our bodies are brilliant and won’t topple forward, instead, areas of our body displace in their alignment. If you can work out of heeled footwear to something flatter (or better yet, check out some minimal footwear or zero-drop footwear), that would be a positive step toward hip health.  *pun intended 😉

2. Back your hips up (active): 

   Once you wear flatter footwear, check in with your pelvis alignment. Does your pelvis tend to drift forward over your toes or lean on counters when washing your hands? If so, you could be unnecessarily loading your quads and knees and not placing the proper force over your hip joints affecting bone density and hip health. Try to move your pelvis back over your heels and become aware when it begins to shift forward. You’ll notice when you wear heeled footwear; it displaces the pelvis toward the toes—just one more reason to flatten your footwear.

3. Double Calf Stretch (active):

   Your glutes and hamstrings will load more after you’ve lowered your footwear and backed your hips up. Therefore, stretching them out with a double calf stretch is nice. Stand in front of a chair or countertop. Walk your feet a little wider than hip distance apart. Hinge forward with as flat of a back as you can until your pelvis stops moving, letting your pelvis shift back a little over your heels. Reach your arms onto the surface in front of you and hold for a minute. If you want an added stretch, swipe your pelvis across to one leg for an outer hip stretch for a breath or two, then repeat to the other side. 

4. Hip listing (active):

   After stretching your hips out, it’s nice to strengthen the outer glutes to aid in walking and hip health. Begin barefoot with backed-up hips. Shift your weight to your right leg and drive your right heel into the floor so hard that your left foot floats off the floor with a straight knee. Balance and hold for a breath or two. Then place the floating foot back on the ground and try the other side. If you need to hold onto a wall, that’s okay initially, but you want to wean yourself off the assist eventually. Work your way up to balancing on one leg for a minute.