Hip pain often comes down to weak or poorly coordinated glute muscles and tight hip flexors, and the exercises that help most target exactly that: the glute bridge, hip abduction, the clamshell, hip extension, and the kneeling hip flexor stretch.
Keep reading for a step-by-step breakdown of how to do each one safely and get the most out of your routine.
Why the Right Exercises Can Ease Hip Pain
Hip pain rarely has one single cause. It can come from osteoarthritis, gluteal tendinopathy or bursitis, femoroacetabular impingement, a muscle strain, piriformis syndrome, or pain referred from your lower back.
Where you feel it usually points to what's going on: groin or inner-hip pain tends to mean the joint itself is involved, while pain on the outer hip or buttock usually traces back to tendons, the bursa, or surrounding muscles.
Despite this range of causes, most cases share a common thread. Weak or poorly coordinated glute muscles — the gluteus medius in particular — combined with tight hip flexors show up again and again as contributing factors.
This is why the same handful of exercises tends to help across so many different diagnoses. Strengthening the muscles that support the hip takes pressure off the joint itself and improves how the whole area moves, while loosening tight hip flexors through mobility work reduces the stiffness that often makes things worse.
It's worth keeping expectations grounded. Exercise is genuinely useful for hip osteoarthritis, but the average improvement is modest rather than dramatic — it won't erase the problem, but it moves things in the right direction.
The picture looks better for lateral hip pain specifically: one clinical trial found that education combined with exercise outperformed both a cortisone injection and simply waiting to see if things improved on their own. That's a meaningful data point if you're deciding how to approach treatment in the first place.
Ground Rules Before You Start Moving
A few habits make the difference between exercises that help your hip and ones that aggravate it. Before you get into the moves themselves, it's worth locking these in.
Start every session with 5–10 minutes of light activity, like walking, to get blood flowing to the area before you ask the muscles to work harder.
Once you begin the exercises, slow down — controlled movement matters far more than how many reps you squeeze in, since rushing tends to pull form apart and shift the load onto the wrong muscles or joints.
Pain monitoring is where most people go wrong, so use a simple check: rate your discomfort on a 0–10 scale before you start.
If it climbs more than 2–3 points during or after the exercise and doesn't settle back down, that's your cue to scale back the range, reps, or resistance. This ties into a distinction worth understanding clearly:
- Mild, temporary discomfort — a normal part of working a stiff or weak area, and generally fine to push through
- Sharp or worsening pain — a stop signal, not something to work around
Progress slowly from there. Add reps or a small amount of resistance over the course of weeks, not days — hip tissue adapts gradually, and jumping ahead usually just invites a setback that costs you more time than the shortcut saved.
One exception overrides all of the above: if you've had a hip replacement, get clearance from your doctor or physical therapist before starting any of these exercises.
Certain positions are restricted after surgery, and what's safe for a typical hip issue may not be safe for a replaced joint.
The 5 Best Exercises for Hip Pain
Glute Bridge
This is the foundational move for hip pain, working the glutes and hamstrings while keeping compressive load off your spine and hip joint.
- Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
- Tighten your abs and glutes.
- Press through your heels to lift your hips until your body forms a straight line from knees to shoulders.
- Hold briefly at the top.
- Lower with control.
Aim for 10–15 reps across 2–3 sets, a few times a week. Push through your heels rather than your toes, avoid over-arching your lower back at the top, and check in on where you feel the work — it should be in the glutes, not the hamstrings.
Once the basic version feels easy, progress to a single-leg bridge, a marching bridge, or add a resistance band above the knees.
One warning sign to watch for: if you feel lower-back pain instead of glute fatigue, that's not just discomfort to push through. Shorten your range of motion and double-check your pelvic tilt before continuing.
Hip Abduction (Side-Lying or Standing)
This move targets the gluteus medius and minimus — the muscles responsible for stabilizing your pelvis from the side, and often the weak link behind lateral hip pain.
Side-lying version: Lie with your legs stacked straight, then lift your top leg without letting your pelvis roll backward.
Standing version: Hold onto a wall or chair for support, then lift one leg out to the side while keeping your trunk upright.
Build from around 8 reps toward 12, a few times a week. The pelvis needs to stay still and stacked throughout — the movement should come from the hip joint, not from hiking your pelvis up.
Stop before you feel it creeping into your lower back. Progress with ankle weights, resistance bands, or by moving into standing abduction and side planks.
If you're dealing with tendon-related lateral hip pain specifically, keep your leg from crossing past the midline of your body — that compressive position can aggravate the tendon rather than help it.
Clamshell
The clamshell isolates the gluteus medius along with the deep hip rotators, and it's often one of the first exercises used to rebuild hip stability.
- Lie on your side with knees bent to roughly 45 degrees and feet together.
- Raise your top knee like an opening clamshell, keeping your pelvis from rolling.
- Lower with control.
Target 10–15 reps for 2–3 sets per side. Keep your heels touching throughout, and stop the moment your pelvis starts rotating backward — that's a sign you've gone past your current range. Progress with a resistance band above the knees, or by lifting your feet off the ground.
This is the exercise clinicians disagree on most. Soon after a hip replacement, or with gluteal tendinopathy, the clamshell's side-lying, adducted position can actually aggravate the tissue rather than strengthen it. If either applies to you, gentler isometric abduction work is usually the better starting point.
Hip Extension
Hip extension strengthens the gluteus maximus and hamstrings — the muscles you rely on to stand up from sitting, climb stairs, and stabilize your pelvis during daily movement.
Standing version: Hold onto support, then lift one straight leg backward without arching your back, squeezing the glute at the top.
A prone (face-down) variation, lifting one straight leg while keeping your hips on the floor, works as an alternative if standing balance is an issue.
Guidance runs around 8 reps building to 12 for the standing version, or roughly 4–6 reps per leg for the prone version.
Keep the movement small and controlled — the lift should come from your glute, not from arching your lower back to gain extra height.
Once this feels manageable, add an ankle weight, or move toward step-ups and sit-to-stand chair exercises for more functional strength.
Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch
Tight hip flexors are common after long stretches of sitting, and this stretch directly addresses that tightness at the front of the hip.
- Kneel on your back leg with your front foot flat on the floor.
- Tuck your pelvis under and squeeze the glute of your back leg.
- Shift your hips forward until you feel a stretch through the front of your hip.
Hold for 15–30 seconds, repeating 2–4 times per side — this can be done daily. Keep your torso upright rather than leaning forward, avoid letting your lower back arch, and make sure your front knee stays over your ankle rather than pushing past your toes. If kneeling irritates your knee, a standing lunge version delivers the same stretch without the pressure.
Matching Exercises to Your Specific Hip Issue
Not every hip problem calls for the same emphasis. Since the underlying cause shapes which exercises help and which ones to approach carefully, here's how to adjust based on what you're dealing with.
Lateral hip pain (tendinopathy or bursitis): Make abductor strengthening your priority, but manage the load carefully rather than pushing into higher reps or resistance too quickly. Ease into the clamshell rather than starting there, since its compressive position can aggravate an irritated tendon. Outside of exercise, avoid sitting with your legs crossed and don't lie on the painful side — both positions compress the same tissue you're trying to calm down.
Suspected impingement: Steer clear of deep squats and any movement that combines deep hip flexion with rotation, since these bring the joint into positions that reproduce the pinching pain. Stay within a pain-free range throughout, and resist the urge to chase depth or range of motion before the joint is ready for it.
Osteoarthritis with stiffness: Pair gentle mobility work with glute strengthening, and layer in low-impact cardio like walking, cycling, or swimming. This combination addresses both sides of the problem — the stiffness that limits movement and the muscular weakness that leaves the joint under-supported.
General hip weakness or prevention: A balanced routine covering all five exercises works well as a baseline, since you're not working around an active injury or a specific diagnosis to avoid.
These categories are a starting point, not a diagnosis. A physical therapist can identify exactly what's driving your hip pain and flag any movements likely to aggravate it — a distinction that matters, since the right exercise for one hip condition can be the wrong one for another.
Building a Weekly Routine That Progresses Safely
Knowing the exercises is one thing — sequencing them so your hip actually adapts without flaring up is another. Here's a simple progression to follow.
Weeks 1–2: Start with just three exercises — the glute bridge, side-lying hip abduction, and the kneeling hip flexor stretch. Keep reps low, around 8–10, and put your attention entirely on form rather than intensity. This phase is about teaching your muscles the right movement pattern before asking more of them.
Weeks 2–6: Once the basics feel solid, add the clamshell and hip extension, assuming neither is contraindicated for your specific condition. Gradually build reps from 8 toward 12, then add light resistance and drop back down to 8 reps to restart the cycle at the new load — the same progression pattern used across all the strengthening moves.
Frequency matters as much as the exercises themselves:
- Strengthening exercises: 2–3 days a week
- Stretches: daily
After that initial 4–6 week block, you don't need to keep escalating. Shift into a maintenance routine of 2–3 sessions a week to hold onto the strength and mobility you've built.
Throughout every phase, the same pain rule applies: if discomfort spikes and doesn't settle back down, pull back on reps, resistance, or range of motion.
And if you've put in several consistent weeks without any improvement, that's your signal to bring in a professional rather than keep adjusting the routine on your own.
When to Stop and Get Professional Help
Exercise helps most hip pain, but it's not the right response to every situation. Some symptoms mean you should stop self-treating and get evaluated instead.
Seek urgent care right away if you have:
- Sudden, severe pain, inability to bear weight, a visibly deformed hip, or a leg that looks shorter after a fall — all signs of a possible fracture or dislocation
- A hot, swollen hip along with fever, which can point to infection
- A popping sensation at the moment of injury paired with a loss of movement
See a doctor or physical therapist on a non-urgent basis if:
- Pain has lasted more than about two weeks
- It isn't improving with rest
- It keeps interfering with daily activities or disrupting your sleep
Beyond these red flags, there's a broader case for professional guidance even without an emergency. The exercises in this guide are generally useful, but hip pain has several distinct underlying causes, and the “right” exercise genuinely differs depending on which one you have.
A physical therapist can identify your specific diagnosis and build a program around it — one that emphasizes what will help and avoids what might make things worse, which a generic routine can't account for.
Keep the core rule in mind as you work through any of these exercises: mild, temporary discomfort is a normal part of the process, but sharp or lasting pain never is. If you're feeling the latter, that's your body telling you to get it looked at rather than push through.
Conclusion
Hip pain has plenty of possible causes, but the glute bridge, hip abduction, clamshell, hip extension, and kneeling hip flexor stretch address the weak glutes and tight hip flexors behind most of them.
Progress gradually, pay attention to your pain levels, and adjust the routine to match your specific diagnosis rather than treating every hip issue the same way.
If discomfort persists past a couple of weeks or something feels off beyond normal muscle fatigue, a doctor or physical therapist can pinpoint the cause and get you back on track faster than guesswork will.
