Hip pain or injury might cause your sporting schedule to come to an abrupt and premature halt. When collisions and falls are unavoidable, there are steps you can take to reduce your risks of getting pain or suffering an injury when participating in sports.
1. Pulled Muscles
A pulled muscle is one that has become overstretched or ripped. This sort of injury is common during athletics and can affect the hips, groins, and hamstrings. You may also feel hip and buttock pain if you strain your lower back. One of the most common causes of muscular strain is not warming up adequately before exercising, which is followed by overusing certain muscle groups, poor technique, or exercising while exhausted. Avoiding these frequent mistakes will help you avoid hip injury.
2. Hip Bursitis
Bursae are fluid-filled sacs that cushion the bones, muscles, and tendons as they travel through the joint. There are about 150 bursae throughout the body, including on the outside of the hip joint. Making repetitive movements or overusing the joint can inflame the bursae, a disease known as bursitis, resulting in discomfort and swelling. Bursitis of the hip, also known as trochanteric bursitis, is common in those who participate in high-impact activities that require frequent changes of direction or pausing, such as footballers and rugby players. It is typically treated with a combination of rest, ice, pain relievers, steroid injections, and physiotherapy.
Hip bursitis should be treated as soon as possible to avoid becoming chronic.
While it is not always feasible to prevent the condition, it is related to overuse of the muscles, so listen to your body and avoid pushing yourself too hard when your muscles are weary. Contact a sports injury clinic; they will help you with exercises to increase hip strength and flexibility, and always wear appropriate footwear.
3. Hip Labral Tears
Your labrum is a ring of thick tissue that surrounds the hip socket and helps to keep the ball at the top of your thigh bone inside the socket while also supporting the joint's smooth mobility. The labrum can tear as a result of a catastrophic hip injury, such as a severe fall or collision, or from repetitive movements that cause degradation over time. Hip labral tears can accompany a hip dislocation and are frequently caused by a sharp twisting movement or a heavy fall.
Depending on the severity of the tear, this type of injury may be treated with rest, anti-inflammatory medication, physical therapy, or corticosteroid injections into the affected area. In more acute cases, you may require keyhole surgery to remove or repair the torn labrum.
While traumatic labral tears cannot be avoided, you can lower your risk of developing a chronic overuse injury by progressively raising your fitness and avoiding abrupt increases in the time and intensity of your training routine.
4. Hip Dislocation and Subluxation
A total dislocation of the hip joint is typically connected with major car collisions at high speeds; however, you may experience a hip subluxation - in which the ball of the hip joint is pushed partially out of the socket - during high-impact sports such as rugby or football. Both dislocations and subluxations are severe injuries that require extensive recuperation time.
You will require immediate medical attention, and surgery may be necessary if neighboring ligaments, nerves, or blood arteries are also affected. Because this sort of injury is associated with violent incidents, it is usually impossible to prevent, but you should always get treatment right after and avoid returning to sports until your doctor says it is safe to do so.
5. Hip Fracture
The most common type of sports-related hip fracture is a stress fracture of the femur's neck (thigh bone). Long-distance runners are especially vulnerable to this form of injury because they repeatedly stress the bones of the hip joint, which can lead to microfractures. You should avoid putting weight on the injured limb for four to six weeks to allow it to heal. You may need surgery to place a plate or pins into the injured bone.
Stress fractures account for around 30% of all injuries sustained by runners. If you feel pain while jogging, stop and not continue running. Allow your body to relax between training sessions, and always wear the appropriate running shoes.
