Aerobic exercise can help you control your weight, strengthen your heart, and prevent future bone disease by helping you maintain your bone mass. Paradoxically, too much aerobic activity may stress your joints and cause chronic pain in your lower back, knees and hips. Hip pain, while less common, can limit your ability to get our of a car or walk up a flight of stairs
Hip Anatomy
Six rotators, three gluteal muscles, the quadriceps in the front of the thigh and the hamstrings in the back of the leg control the movements of the hip. Your hip flexors, located in the front of your body, connect your thighs to your pelvis and the bursae, located on the outer sections of the hips, prevent soft tissue friction during aerobic exercise. Your illiotibial band begins at the outside of your hip and connects just below the outer portion of your knee. Inflammation of any of these joints or imbalances amongst the hip's supporting muscles may cause hip pain.
Muscle Mechanics
Safe movement always requires optimal muscle balance, but the high impact nature of most aerobic exercises demands superior muscle mechanics. Efficient aerobic activity depends on your muscles' ability to work in concert with each other, each bearing full responsibility for their assigned workload. Overwork on one side of the joint, such as the hip flexors, causes laziness and weakness on the opposite side of the joint, which, in this case, is the gluteal muscle complex. These imbalances impede movement quality and cause hip pain. Even people with efficient muscle mechanics may end up with imbalances simply by performing the same type of aerobic activity each day. Cross-training with different types of aerobic exercise may prevent these hip overuse injuries.
Bursitis
Overtraining may cause the bursae inflammation called hip bursitis, according to Dr. Samuel B. Adkins in an April 2000 article featured in the medical journal "American Family Physician." People with wide pelvises, inflexible hip joints, leg length discrepancies and runners who run in worn-out running shoes are susceptible. Ankle pronation, or feet that roll inward, cause internal rotation of the hip joint, thereby creating another type of stress that may cause hip bursitis. Runners who run in the same direction on a track are also susceptible to bursitis.
Iliotibial Band Syndrome
The thick band that runs from your outer thigh to your knee, called the iliotibial or IT band, is a major hip stabilizer. Your IT band works overtime during aerobic activities such as hill running or incline training such as an elliptical or stepping machine. IT band syndrome often manifests as knee pain, but some people experience it as pain or snapping in the hip. Flexibility exercises and cross-training with a variety of aerobic activity may prevent IT band syndrome.
