Hips Hurting During Your Ab Workouts? Here’s Why

If your hips hurt more than your abs during core workouts, something's up. And when your hip muscles unintentionally monopolize your effort during an ab exercise, you're likely to suffer hip pain or soreness. To add insult to injury, your abs, which aren't working as hard, miss out on the benefits.

Here, Emily McLaughlin, certified fitness trainer and nutrition expert at 8fit, troubleshoots reasons why your hips might be achy during ab day. Plus, she shares strategies to calm those hyperactive hip flexors and engage your core for the best ab burn.

Your Hips Are Overcompensating

Ab-focused exercises like situps, Pilates roll-ups, knee tucks, or leg lifts decrease the distance between your upper and lower body. When your abs aren't strong enough to bridge this distance — to move your trunk closer to your thighs — you often rely on your hips to do the work, McLaughlin says.

The hip flexors are strong, powerful muscles that kick into gear to take over the movement, compensating for weak abdominal muscles. “That's why it's so important to fully focus on the abdominals when performing core exercises,” McLaughlin says.

How to Prevent Your Hips From Overcompensating During Core Work

To halt your hips from hijacking your ab routine, do some prep work beforehand. Activation exercises like bird dogs, forearm planks, and pelvic tilts can help you engage your core and activate the muscles in your abdomen, McLaughlin says.

Move 1: Bird Dog

1. In tabletop position, keep your hands directly underneath your shoulders and your knees no wider than your hips.

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2. On an exhale, reach your right arm straight out in front of you. At the same time, kick your left leg straight back. Keep the spine neutral and avoid arching your back.
3. Switch sides, reaching your left arm out in front and kicking your right leg back.

Move 2: Forearm Plank

1. Get down on all fours and put your elbows and forearms on a comfortable surface, such as a mat, towel, or carpeted floor.

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2. Extend your legs behind you and push up into a plank, creating a straight line from your shoulders to your hips to your ankles. Keep your neck in neutral alignment by looking at your hands, and make sure your hips don’t move upward or sag.
3. Hold this position for around 30 seconds without moving. Keep your hips level and squared to the ground. You’ve nailed one set, so try doing two or three total to increase the benefit.

Move 3: Pelvic Tilt

1. Lie on your back and come into a low bridge with the glutes and lower back off the floor, but keep your upper back on the floor. Your feet should be hip-width apart.
2. Slowly tilt your pelvis so that your tailbone tilts up toward the ceiling without allowing your lower back to touch the floor.
3. Return to a neutral pelvis and repeat.

1. Lie on the floor or a mat with your knees bent and the soles of both feet flat against the floor. Extend your arms to the side with your palms facing upward.
2. While breathing outward, gently engage your abdominal muscles to press your back to the floor or mat without lifting your hips. Hold this position for a moment.
3. Breathe in, and relax your abdominal muscles. At the same time, gently engage your lower back muscles to increase the arch in your lower back. Avoid lifting your hips throughout. Hold this position for a few seconds.
4. Return to the starting position.

By incorporating both exercises, you can develop a more balanced system of muscles around your core, which can help maintain good spinal alignment and gain greater control over how these muscles move.

You're Not Mentally Focusing On Your Abs Enough

Some days, you simply go through the motions or rush through your workouts mindlessly just to cross them off the agenda. The problem is that when you don't concentrate on your core during ab exercises, you may not be reaping the results you think.

Since your hip muscles are hefty, they're happy to bear the brunt of work when your focus isn't on your abs. Not only will this lead to a below-par core workout, but you might also end up with tight hips.

How to Engage Your Abs Using the Mind-Muscle Connection

“Instead of letting the mind wander, thinking about to-do lists or your child making noise in the next room, stay present and connected with your physical body,” McLaughlin says. Focusing your mind on your working muscles may activate them more effectively.

“During ab exercises, really think about your abs,” McLaughlin says. “Engage by drawing the navel in toward the spine, keeping the lower back grounded down and lifting your shoulders off the ground using your belly, not the hips.”

Your Hip Flexors Are Weak

”Because we aren't using the hips to lift our legs and move around throughout the day, they progressively become weaker and shorter,” McLaughlin says. “Tight flexors can also be a side effect of workouts like long-distance running and cycling.”

How to Work on Weak Hip Flexors

For starters, get out of your chair. The more you move, the better off your hips will be. “Simply getting up for a walk every 30 to 60 minutes is a great way to keep the hips and glutes activated,” McLaughlin says.

But stretching is only part of the puzzle. You should also incorporate strength training, McLaughlin says. By strengthening the surrounding muscles like your quads, hamstrings and glutes, you support the entire hip joint. Start with simple exercises like glute bridges, squats and clamshells. ‌

Move 1: Glute Bridge‌

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet planted on the floor about a foot or so from your butt.

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2. Driving through your heels, lift your butt off the floor using strength from your glutes. Lift as high as you can while maintaining a neutral spine, and avoid arching your lower back.
3. Lower down in the same fashion and repeat. Be sure to keep the glutes tight on the way down. ‌

Move 2: Squat‌

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Turn your feet to point out to the side just slightly.

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2. Hinge at your hips and bend your knees (as if you were going to sit in a chair) while keeping your chest up. Center your knees above your feet throughout the whole exercise. This will help prevent them from rolling inward or outward.
3. Either raise your arms out in front of you at shoulder height for balance or bring your hands up to your chest.
4. Once you've lowered as far as your hip flexibility will allow, squeeze your glutes and stand back up. ‌

Move 3: Clamshell‌

1. Lie on your side with knees bent and one leg directly on top of the other.

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2. Slowly lift the upper knee while keeping the feet in contact with each other.
3. Slowly lower the upper leg back down. Repeat this motion 15 to 20 times.
4. Turn to the other side to address the opposite leg.

As you gradually strengthen your hips and build a wider range of motion, you should feel less pain in the area during ab exercises.

But “if it's still hard to execute an ab-focused movement without your hip muscles, then that exercise might be too difficult for you in that moment,” says McLaughlin. Instead, she recommends sticking to ”ab exercises performed on the hands or forearms — like planks — which cause less strain to the hips because they don't contract that space.”

The Takeaway

• If your hips hurt during an ab workout, they may be overcompensating for weak abs. Alternatively, your hip flexor muscles might need some strengthening.
• You may benefit from focusing more closely on particular ab muscles while you target them and staying mentally present to harness the mind-muscle connection.
• Being sure to walk about at least every hour can help to keep your hips moving if you work a desk job.
• Warm up your abs before a core workout with exercises like bird dogs, planks, or pelvic tilts, and be sure to regularly stretch your hips. You can also try clamshells, squats, or glute bridges to target your hip flexor muscles.