Have you performed the hip flexor injury tests in part 3?  Yes? Good, let’s move on.  The final stage in injury treatment is hip flexor strengthening in order to get the hip flexor back to 100 %( and hopefully even farther once we have reached this point).


During hip flexor strengthening it’s important to start very SLOWLY, and gradually build up both resistance and volume in order to make sure you do not have a re-occurrence of your hip flexor injury.  The first day back to strengthening your hip flexor, you only want to do one or two sets of one or two exercises.  The exact plan you should follow will be explained at the end of this article, but first, here are the exercises selected as the best rehab exercises for hip flexors:

Hip Flexor Strengthening Exercises

Bicycle Sit-ups

Bicycle Sit-ups are just like normal sit-ups, except that you want to keep your hands behind your head, and alternate bending and bringing your knee up so that it looks like you are riding a bike.

These are great for a re-introduction into hip flexor strengthening, the major muscle group worked in these is the abdominals, but they also lightly use the hip flexors, and when I say hip flexors, I mean that it hits almost all of the muscles the hip flexor is composed of.

Leg raises

To perform leg raises simply lie flat on your back, keep both legs together, and slowly bring your legs up as far as possible without bending them.  Make sure that you are not cheating by using your momentum, stay as controlled as possible in your movement.

This exercise is very intense on your hip flexors and very strenuous overall, this is something you should build up to, and when you start doing leg raises you may find that you are only able to do a few repetitions with good form.

Resistance Band Work

If you have or can get a resistance band, these are fantastic tools for hip flexor strengthening.  There are two ways we can use a band for hip flexor strengthening; either way, start by attaching the band to your ankle, and the other side to a wall/door.

As shown on the left picture, you can lift your leg straight out, and in the right, you can lift you knee to your chest.  For added resistance you can apply pressure with your hand like in the strength test from the previous article in this series.

Both of these exercises isolate the hip flexor movement we are targeting which is why they are so effective.  They should be main stays of your hip flexor strengthening routines.

Squats

There isn’t much to say about squats, other than they are the king of lower body development.  With the core activation involved, along with the length of the hip flexor muscles, squats are a powerful tool to develop hip strength.  Since the hip flexor is only minorly involved, this is another great exercise to use when you are starting off your hip flexor strengthening.

Routine

The goal is to do hip flexor strengthening 2-3 times a week, starting slow, and building up to a solid workout routine.  Start by picking one or two exercises and doing 1-2 sets to the point where the hip flexor feels fatigued, this amount will be different for everyone, and you should not be going to failure during rehab ever.

Try to build up to a routine of three of the above exercises where you are able to do a controlled 20 repetitions for 3 sets, I suggest using a 30 second rest interval in-between sets.

At this point you should have the information you need to treat your hip flexor strain, if you want to learn more about the hip flexor go back to our homepage, or check out our hip flexor injury prevention articles if you’re interested.