13 Top Hip Strengthening Exercises Every Runner Should Be Doing

One of the most common causes of knee pain, ankle pain or IT Band pain is hip weakness from lack of strength or tightness shutting down muscles. That’s right hip strengthening exercises for runners and hip stretches are both necessary to prevent issues.

The best hip strengthening workouts will be those that improve strength and mobility. That is, they will aid to increase muscle endurance and mass, as well as train your hips to move through their full range of motion.

There are moves that work your glutes, thighs, and hamstrings, as well as hip flexor exercises that work the muscles on the front of your hips. It’s about hitting things from every angle to build total strength which allows your body to hold your knees, ankles and hips in alignment as you run.

Hip strengthening exercises don’t require any special equipment, making them suitable for use at home, when traveling, or at the gym.

You can, however, use things like a resistance band to spice things up a bit.

It’s essential that these muscles be strong and functioning properly since they support and work with your hips.

Otherwise, they could put undue strain on them, leading to hip pain, muscle imbalances, compensations, and eventual injuries that require weeks to months of rest.

If you’re looking for the best hip strengthening exercises, you’re definitely in the right place. In this article, learn why hip strength matters to you as a runner, and how you can start doing some hip strengthening exercises today.

Why Hip Strength Matters to Runners?

Let’s dive in to why weak hips are a problem, what the heck are the hips and then how hip exercises can help.

A number of studies have proven that strengthening weak hips is more effective at relieving knee pain than focusing on trying to improve knee function.

While, another study showed that improving hip flexor strength improved run time by up to 9%.

Not one to dilly dally, I give you a video of ideas right off the bat! Just click to watch.

Running Pain from Weak Hips

Lack of hip strength causes some of the most common issues related to running injuries:

creates a tight IT Band, which then begins to pull your knee cap the wrong direction
knee failing inward when you run
twisting when you run to compensate for tightness
unstable pelvis creating lower back pain while running
muscle imbalances which means weaker muscles get overworked
poor form when doing squats, lunges (you know that cross training we harp about)

Resulting Injuries by Weak Hips

Our hip muscles serve as the stabilizers for our bodies and weak one’s are shown to increase injuries, most commonly:

IT Band Syndrome
Piriformis Syndrome
Knee Pain After Running (sometimes called runner’s knee)
Achilles pain
Even Foot Pain while running

Now we aren’t getting ready to get you ripped hip flexors or the most enviable hip dip on the planet because well who really goes to the gym and does that.

We want to create function! And get clear about what the heck we even mean by saying runners need hip strengthening exercises!

Benefits of Hip Strength for Runners

repairing our movement patterns
allowing the appropriate muscles (like your glutes) to take on the load of the workout
keeping our knees in alignment to prevent pain
keeping our ankles in alignment to prevent pain

What Do We Mean by Hip Strength?

Are you thinking of the hour glass figure or your Aunt Hilda’s hip joint replacement? Most of us recognize that our pelvis creates the width of our hips, but minus the rare instance a runner has a pelvic fracture, our actual “hip” focus tends to be on the surrounding muscles, tendons and fascia.

Keeping the science to a minimum here are the key players:

Hip Flexors: They allow you to raise the leg in front and when flexible to reach full extension for pushing off the ground to create momentum.
Adductors: These muscles move the leg inwards and across the body and are the primary driver in creating knee stability, this includes your groin and inner thigh.
Glutes: Yes, the butt muscles are part of your hips! They control everything from moving your leg out to the side, to extension, to internal and external rotation of the leg.

Though I’ve broken the following in to hip strengthening and a separate article on hip stretches for runners, the truth is that a TIGHT muscle is a WEAK muscle, so you need both in your routine.

Everything you need to know about how to strengthen and loosen your hips to prevent the most common #running injuries!! #runchat Click To Tweet

Symptoms of Weak Glutes

Let’s focus a bit more on the glutes now that we understand they’re part of this whole weak hips complex we need to resolve!

Low back pain while running
Knee pain during or after running
Lack of power running uphill
Plantar fasciitis as a result of a poor gait
Blisters from changing your foot strike

The body is going to compensate for this large muscle not working the way it should and the result is a lot of issues.

Here’s why this matters that we get our glutes firing before a run:

When you place a movement demand on your body, it’s going to do its damnedest to perform. If it can’t do so using the correct muscles, then it’s going to start firing all sorts of funky stuff in a mad dash to satisfy your demands.

The gluteus maximus is a primary mover of hip extension.

There are two other muscles associated with the glutes called the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. These two muscles are most associated with stabilization and are equally as important as the gluteus maximus.

Weak glutes mean weak extension, less power and overcompensation injuries.

How to Kow if Your Glutes are Firing?

Not sure if your glutes are firing? Checkout the tests in this post.

Movement to Help Glutes Fire

Here’s a great one to do before your next run to get everything firing!

By doing something like this or hip bridges before every single run you ensure that the glute muscles are activated and have a better chance of remaining turned out throughout the run, providing more power and stability to your stride.

Doing this 3 times a week before 3 runs means you didn’t need to add in some special workout, just a minute to your warm up for results.

13 Best Hip Strength Exercises for Runners

Relieving pain and getting faster, by spending a little time during your dynamic warm up seems like a pretty great trade off.

Many of these moves are going to engage your glutes, which makes them perfect to do before a workout as it will help you run faster.

👉Here is a preferred set of mini bands, that will work for a variety of moves and allow you to progress as your strength increases.

All of these are things you’ll find in our course Primed to Run Pain Free with full videos and follow along programs.

I’ve done a lot of posts with workouts for hip strength over the years, so I will link to each of them below. However, if you’re simply looking for a quick list of the movements I recommend ASAP to every runner this would be it.

Try adding 10 reps to your dynamic warm up or doing 3 rounds of a couple moves as part of your full body strength training.

Clam Shell

Old school works like a charm. I’ve done a video showing different variations of the clam shell, which you should use to hit the muscle from different angles.

The basic move is NOT the most effective for engaging your muscles, but learn it to know what you should be doing.

Basic: Lay on your side with legs at 90 degrees and keeping your feet together, you move the top knee towards the ceiling and then place your knees back together.

Advanced: Place a mini band around the legs just above the knees. Press in to your elbow driving hips off the floor and then push the top knee away while keeping feet together.

Glute Bridges

Again I did a full video showing the variations of hip bridges of this because it’s a movement where you should start with the basics and progress to continue challenging the muscles in different ways.

Basic: Lay on your back and bend knees, bring feet on floor to where your fingers can touch the back of your heels.

Raise your hips up creating a straight line from your head to your knees and hold for 30 seconds before rolling down slowly.

Advanced: Move to a Single Leg Glute Bridge

Lunge Matrix

This one requires you to move with thought through a range of motions. It meas watching where you may not have as much motion and not simply quickly going through the motions. As runners we work in one plane of motion, which is forward, but our hip muscles are designed to move lots of ways and we need to strengthen those other movements.

You’ll be lunging front, side, curtsy and cross curtsy.

See this post for more help on the lunge matrix.

Basic: Get comfortable with side lunges. From a standing position, lunge out to the left side landing with knee bent and lowering down, then pressing through that foot to come back to standing.

Don’t forget strengthen is only 1 part of the solution! You must do these TIGHT HIP STRETCHES as well to prevent knee pain and other running injuries.

Hip Flexor Raise

Think about simply marching in place. We want the knee to come up to 90 degrees and then go back down directly under your body.

Option 1: Start out by doing the move slowly, raising your knee and holding for 10 seconds.

Option 2: Place a mini band around your feet and quickly bring up the knee. It’s going to be much harder!

Monster Walks

This might be the first move every PT assigns a runner! Again a great one before runs.

You can make this easier by placing the mini band above the knees, harder at ankles and hardest around the balls of your feet.

Get in to a squat position with upper body strong, feet hip width apart and toes pointing forward.

Once the band is in place and feet are hip width apart you will step to the right while maintaining resistance on the band. Do 10 steps right, 10 steps left and then do 10 forward and backward!

runner hip exercises — @kineticphysio demonstration

Side Plank with Leg Lift

Did you know that if you think about pressing your bottom foot in to the ground, you are actually going to engage your glute medius which is super hard to hit! Plus keeping your hips lifted forces you to work the core and hips.

Getting in to a forearm side plank, press the bottom foot in to the ground.

Once you feel stable begin to raise and lower the top leg. This is going to require more focus on keeping your hips strong and high so they don’t sag during the movement.

Fire Hydrants

Yet another move that everyone in my 30 Day Core Program is familiar with because it works!

From a tabletop position you are going to raise your bent right knee to the side, just like you might imagine a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. It’s a slow and controlled movement.

Once you’re not letting your body tilt or sway with the movement, you can add a band above the knees for additional resistance.

Weighted Hip-Strengthening Exercises

Once you’ve gotten in to a routine with the above moves, it’s time to progress the workout by adding weight. We know that this is going to provide even more injury prevention benefits and boost your speed.

Almost EVERY elite runner you hear talk about strength includes some of these hip and glute strengthening movements.

Bulgarian Split Squat

This is one of the most effective glute movements when done correctly. Unfortunately many do it wrong, so don’t be afraid to have your form assessed.

Place the left foot on a bench behind you, the right is flat on the floor. Think of your starting position as looking like a lunge position. You then drop the left knee down taking the lunge lower.

Really think about that planted foot pushing in to the ground to bring you back up. To get more glute muscles recruited try leaning forward.

Your knee does not need to come all the way to the ground for this to work.

Step Ups

I love these because you can do them anywhere and it adjusts to your level! Start with a little step and no weight, slowly increase the height of the step and the weight over time.

In this video, I demonstrate a variety of steps ups – front step up, side step up and curtsy steps. The Goal is to hit your muscles from different angles.

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A post shared by Amanda Brooks : Run Coach (@runtothefinish)

Single Leg Deadlift

Start with feet hip-width apart, dumbbell in left hand. Plant your right leg.

Hinge at the hips to lower dumbbell toward ground as you raise the left leg behind you. Your spine should be strong and a straight line from head to hips, no rounding the back.

The goal is not to get the weight to the floor, but work towards about your shins and then press in to that right foot to come back to standing.

Basic: Start with no weight to first get the form correct.

Full Hip Strength Workouts

Following are the additional workouts, you can use for a guide as to what to put together in a workout.

As with any muscle, you want to continue to challenge it in different ways and find the movements where you feel the muscles working the hardest over time.

REMINDER IF YOU NEED MORE HELP