Hip Anatomy

(2 minute read)

The way we move through life is largely controlled by our hips. Walking, running, dancing, jumping, turning are all made possible mostly by just the 17 muscles that surround each hip. Thirty four total muscles (17 for each hip) may seem like a lot, but it’s only 5.3% of all of the skeletal muscles in our body. Considering the vast number of activities these muscles allow us to do it’s hard to argue that any other group of muscles is as important.

Following is a brief synopsis of the muscle actions at the hip and the muscles that are involved in each. When you read the description try to picture the many activities that you do every day that use these muscles. You will quickly begin to realize how important it is to keep each of them healthy and strong.

We’ll start with the biggie, hip extension. Any time you stand up from a chair, walk up a flight of stairs, jump or run you are performing hip extension. The muscles involved in hip extension are:

Gluteus Maximus
Hamstring Muscles ( Biceps Femoris, Semimembranosus, Semitendinosus)

Since only two muscles are responsible for taking you from seated to standing, you understand why the gluteus maximus has to be a large, strong, powerful muscle. To make it even larger, stronger and more powerful, do resistance exercises that involve extending the hip.

Hip abduction is when you push your leg out to the side. Stepping to the left requires the abductors of your right leg to work. The abductors:

Gluteus Medius
Gluteus Minimus
Sartorius
Tensor Fasciae Latae
Gluteus Maximus (upper fibers)

While abduction is an important movement, the reason the gluteus medius, gluteus minimus and tensor fasciae latae are especially important is because they support your entire torso on your hip when you are on one leg. You do this thousands of times a day by simply walking. When you add jogging, running, jumping, dancing and a bunch of other activities that involve some balancing on one leg you can see why physical therapists are always having clients strengthen these muscles, especially the gluteus medius. Weak abductors can lead to problems with your hip, knees and ankles. Additionally as we age balance becomes extremely important to avoid falls. Stand up now and balance on one leg for a while. Within a short amount of time you will feel these muscles working to keep you balanced. To improve these muscles do exercises that involve opening the knees against resistance (bands or machine).

Hip adduction is the opposite of hip abduction. Hip adduction is when you bring your legs together. Put a volleyball between your knees and squeeze it, that’s hip adduction. There are plenty of muscles that adduct the hip:

Adductor Brevis
Adductor Longus
Adductor Magnus
Adductor Minimus
Pectineus
Gracilis
Obturator Externus

To strengthen these muscles put something between your knees (like a volleyball, or a machine designed for adducting) and squeeze.

The lateral rotators are all of the small muscles that attach to the femur that we use when we want to turn. Lateral rotators turn your right foot to the right and your left foot to the left if your foot isn’t on the ground. If you’re standing then the lateral rotators of your right hip will turn your whole body to the left. Again, these are muscles we use all of the time. A golf swing relies heavily on your lateral rotators and lateral rotation is what tennis players do on every single hit. But they’re also important for dance and sports where you make fast changes in direction like soccer and football. The lateral rotators are:

Piriformis
Gemellus Superior
Gemellus Inferior
Obturator Internus
Obturator Externus
Quadratus Femoris

If you want to drive the golf ball further, cut faster to get by an opponent, hit a tennis ball with more power or have crisper more stable turns in dance do yourself a favor and strengthen these muscles. You can improve these muscles by lying on your side or back, bending your knees place your feet together then open your knees against resistance (typically a band).

Note that other muscles aid in lateral rotation. For example the gluteus medius and minimus both aid in lateral rotation when the hip is extended (standing) but they both do the opposite (internal rotation) when the hip is flexed (lying on your back with bent knees). So it’s a good idea to work these muscles with both a flexed hip, extended hip and everything in between.

We’ll cover piriformis issues in the future. For now just realize that for 17% of the population the sciatic nerve goes right through the Piriformis muscle and that can sometimes cause pain.

The opposite of lateral rotation is medial rotation. This is not as common as external rotation. Medial rotation is turning your right foot to the left or if you’re standing on your right foot turning your body to the right. This is a weak action because that is not how humans turn. We use the lateral rotators of our left leg to turn right, not the medial rotators of our right leg. Luckily the medial rotators perform other actions so they can be strengthened in the ways already mentioned. The medial rotators are:

Gluteus Medius
Gluteus Minimus
Tensor Fasciae Latae
Pectineus
Semimembranosus (part of hamstring muscle)

The final group of muscles are the hip flexors. These are the muscles that when standing will raise your leg (lifting the knee). Anyone who wants to run fast needs to develop strong, powerful hip flexors. Also as we strengthen our hip extenders (gluteus maximus) we want to be sure to strengthen our hip flexors so that one group of muscles doesn’t over power the other and potentially lead to pain and injury. The main hip flexors are:

Iliopsoas (Iliacus and Psoas Major muscle)
Rectus Femoris

The rectus femoris is one of the four quadricep muscles and is the only one that crosses the hip joint. The other three quadricep muscles simply extend the knee. The rectus femoris both extends the knee and flexes the hip. The psoas major attaches right to the vertebrae of your lower back. Being in a flexed hip position for extended periods of time, like sitting, can cause the psoas major to shorten and that can lead to back pain. So it’s important to stretch your hip flexors. Actually working the antagonist, your gluteus maximus, will cause your hip flexors to relax. So find exercises that allow you to contract your glutes.

Now you have all of the basic information to know which muscles do what. More importantly you have the knowledge to find exercises that can strengthen all of these extremely important muscles. And there are plenty of useful exercises like squats, lunges, deadlifts, clamshells, etc. Fortunately The Cali Lift Glute Developer™ has been designed to allow you to target every single one of these muscles (not just the glutes) without causing strain to the lower back or knees. There is now simply no reason to ever have weak hips, and every reason to have have strong, great looking hips for the rest of your life.