Hip Impingement (FAI): Exercises that ACTUALLY help

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]If you've got a nip in your hip, that catches you whenever you're doing certain movements, it can feel like it's the shape of your bones that's hindering you. Luckily, that is not the case. For some of us, it can just take a little bit longer to make an improvement, and it will be uncomfortable along the way, and that is actually normal. I'm going to take you through two drills that you're probably going to struggle with at first, but that's the point. We're going to combine them and use the drills to fix the drills to fix your hips.

[00:00:26]Let's get stuck in.

[00:00:29]First thing you want to test is the 90/90 position. We want to see can we sit with our leg externally rotated and our leg internally rotated on the back, and then can we have the hands facing each knee without feeling like we're going to fall over as we do that. And we also want to see can we do this on both sides. This is our passive mobility test to test our hip rotation. Whenever I first came across this, I was barely able to get myself up off my elbow on the floor without my hip cramping in a crazy way, and it really put a lot of pressure on the side of my knee whenever I tried to do it, which is not good.

[00:01:02]What we want to do when we first try this is to set ourselves up with the knees at the side like this first of all, and then really gently take the top leg behind like this. So, my foot is still in contact with my leg here. From there, I want to see can I take the hand off the floor, and is that okay? And then I want to see can I slowly start to bring the leg out to go into those right angle positions and see does anything start to catch at either hip as I do that. And I do that on both sides. So, again, we start legs like this.

[00:01:34]One behind. Slowly take the leg out.

[00:01:38]Slowly take the leg out. And as you do that, does something catch or nip? And then we find our culprit and the thing that we want to improve on. So, this is our passive test. Don't worry if you find this super easy. If you're really, really flexible, the muscle activation stuff will still help you, but this is something that we want to make sure that we can do, and we find that it's pain-free as well.

[00:01:58]We're going to go through the six hip functions to check for where things could be nipping. We're going to use hip cars drill to do that. I'm using a post to hold on to. You can use door frame, chair, anything just to keep balance so you can focus on the one hip. Ideally, we want to see pain-free that we can go through flexion, abduction, internal rotation, extension, and adduction, and then abduction, external rotation, and back to flexion again. So, that tests all six movements, and there should be no nips or catches when we do that. If there is, aha, that's the thing we need to work on. If you're trying to move your hip and one of those six functions are messed up or a couple of them, instead of your hip feeling like it's able to move like this nice and freely, it's going to get stuck on itself. So, it's just going to go like that, and that's where your nip is going to be. So, by improving all six, it gives you that space in the hip so things can move freely.

[00:02:50]The way to warm up for this is to regress the range of motion. So, go slightly up, slightly out, internally rotate, press back, bring the leg back down, go up into abduction, externally rotate, and bring it back. If that feels okay, then try a little bit higher the next time. And what you're looking for is that point that things start to catch on you. So, if you go out and you start to go into internal rotation and you're like, "Oh, there's a nip there." That's where we want to work. So, you can do this in a couple of ways. We can hang out, and we can start to try and rotate just in that one point like that, and then even let ourselves lean a little bit to give ourselves a bit more space, and then try and fix the body and bring it back up and hang out at that range of motion. If it's too hard to hold your leg up, I would use my stairs at home and put my leg at that point that would catch me, and then I can just work on dropping the foot and hanging out there and using this as an active stretch. So, I'm not just wobbling my leg from side to side. I'm actively trying to press my knee down.

[00:03:49]My hip feels a bit crampy as I'm doing this, then I'm trying to open up and really use my glute to open up the hip here. So, I'm using the muscles to create the range. So, you essentially look for the bit that catches you, and you hang out there, and you start to get it to improve. If you need to change the height or whatever you're using, that's okay as well, to go a bit lower, and then take yourself back to the full version again, and see have you made that improvement, and then you'll go down and you'll retest your 90/90.

[00:04:17]After you've done both sides with the hip cars, and you feel like you've made a change, we want to retest our 90/90 as well and see how that feels. Are we able to get up a little bit further? And if there was anything catching, is that feeling like there's more space there?

[00:04:29]Now, what we want to do is start to push our 90/90 range of motion. What we're going to do here is get ourselves more focused on the front leg at first. So, we bring this back leg in like that, and then hands at either side. So, one hand is beside my knee, one hand is beside my foot, and from there, I try and push my sternum up. I'm trying to arch my lower back. So, I'm trying to as if I was trying to do an anterior pelvic tilt here. From there, I'm then going to lean myself forwards until I start to get a deeper stretch in my glute. Not any pain in the knee. Must be in the glute. So, I'm using my hands to support me, and I lean forwards. If I round my back, I will get much lower, but it's no more stretch in the hip. I want to feel it more in the hip. So, I try and bring my sternum like this in front of me, and I lean into it. I breathe out, >> [sighs] >> and try and let myself sink into the stretch. Then I do it again.

[00:05:24]>> [sighs] >> Sink into the stretch, then one more time, >> [snorts] [sighs] >> and sink into the stretch. I can have a little bit of a wiggle side to side here as well. It's always nice to do.

[00:05:37]So, that's the external rotation. Then, I bring myself up. While we're here, we'll do the internal rotation of the back leg. So, I pull this one in, and I bring this one out, and then I start to try and bring myself upright. So, I'm trying to sit myself up straight rather than crunched over like this to get more upright. So, I use my hand to help press up. I grab onto my own shin and I grab onto my own leg and I use that to pull me up. This feels really crampy up at the hip here. It never feels nice to work on internal rotation. Don't worry.

[00:06:06]That's exactly what it's supposed to feel like. It's going to feel bony right away. So, I hang out here again three breaths.

[00:06:14]And with this one I'm trying to actually get myself more upright. So, I'm trying to get away from this hunched figure.

[00:06:18]I'm trying to get myself more upright and more into that internal rotation. And again, I can throw a little wiggle on that third breath. And then I'll swap it up and I'll do that on the other side and see have I got my improvements. So, remember hand on either side lean down, sternum forwards >> [sighs] >> three breaths and then take this leg in, this leg out and I try and get myself from being a hunchback into trying to get more upright and trying to bring myself >> [sighs] >> into that back hip more. And then we'll go back in to the hip cars.

[00:06:59]After we have cleared more space in the hips with the 90/90, we're then going to start to push that hip cars drill a little bit further. So, it looks exactly the same only it's different. So, from here I'm going to lift my leg up in the flexion. Now, there's always a little bit more there than you think. So, I go as high as I can then I go a little touch higher. See that? He's out actually moving. Then same thing we go out as far as I can and then a little touch further. Now, all of a sudden I'm really starting to feel this side of the glute lit up here. From there I try and keep the height of the knees as much as I can and I slowly start to internally rotate and it's going to want to drop down a little bit. So, what I do here I lift it up a little bit higher again.

[00:07:39]I try and straighten up my body again.

[00:07:41]Your body's naturally going to want to lean away from itself like that. So, I really try and fix that at that top position. My hip is working overtime here. From here, I imagine there's something behind me and I press back. I squeeze the glute. My hip is fully open at the front here, fully extended. And then I bring my leg back down.

[00:07:59]And I squeeze my knees together. This is firing up the adductors as well. And I do that in reverse. I go up as high as I can.

[00:08:08]Okay? Goes as high as it can. And then watch. Go a little higher.

[00:08:11]Oh goodness.

[00:08:13]>> [laughter] >> And then I do my external rotation trying to keep that nice and high.

[00:08:18]And then I bring my leg back across into my flexion.

[00:08:22]A little touch higher again and I make myself work. And I'll just do that on the other side as well. Like right now I just one rep of that, my hip is lit up.

[00:08:31]It feels amazing. So, really really nice thing to do to expand that range of motion. Always remember there's that little bit more there. So, that's how we're going to activate all the muscles of the hips. We can also use our hand to press down to. So, if we go up, up as high as we can, and then we use our hand to almost do the opposite. I'm trying to push my leg back down.

[00:08:49]I can hold that for 5 seconds. And then I go out as far as I can. A little touch further.

[00:08:55]And then I try and use my hand.

[00:08:57]Press it back in.

[00:08:59]And then same again, I try and do my internal rotation.

[00:09:03]Back up higher. Fix it. Try and press it back down.

[00:09:07]And then I push back.

[00:09:09]I squeeze my glute. And I actually try and push my leg forwards again. I push against myself. Woo.

[00:09:15]And then I bring in and I squeeze. Luckily, the squeeze here will do that. Although, I suppose you could try and pry your own legs apart, but that's how we can use our hands to add in that nice symmetric as well.

[00:09:25]You're looking for that shaking. You're looking for that extra muscle activation. When we've done that, we'll then retest the 90/90, see how it feels, and then do another hip cars like we did at the very start to see how it feels, has it improved, and does anything catch us, and then finally retest the movement that you know that catches that nip at certain points. So, if it's your squat, whatever it is, sit into it, see does it feel better, see can you move yourself around pain free and with no nips.

[00:09:54]A lot of us do unnecessary things when we try to fix ourselves that are quite simply a waste of time.

[00:10:03]That's why I created the Simplistic Mobility Method.

[00:10:07]For 10 years I've been making people's hips, spine, and shoulders work the way they're supposed to without any fluff.

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[00:10:33]That's a flung and sexy cup of tea.

[00:10:37]>> [laughter] >> So, your routine will look like this.

[00:10:39]You're going to do three rounds. Your first round is your warm-up round.

[00:10:42]You're using the regress 90/90 and the regress hip cars just to get things moving. Round two is your working sets.

[00:10:49]You're going to try and expand on the range, get deeper into the 90/90 positions, and get more activation in your hip cars. And round three is your retest round. You're looking to see how things feel, have you made a change, and can you get further and without experiencing that nip. Then you're going to retest the movement that you would find was uncomfortable to or you find that hip and see if you've made Main thing is that we don't push into any sharp pains. A little bit of discomfort is okay. If you are doing the drills and the next day you find you're sore, then only use the regressions on that next day to let things calm down.

[00:11:22]And make sure that you film yourself so that you can track your progress. This combo has been a lifesaver to myself and many, many others. It is going to help you to get your hips strong and flexible or flung and flexible as we like to say.

[00:11:35]If you're working on all of this stuff and you're doing it correctly and your symptoms are still persistent after 6 months time, then it would be worth investigating and getting a scan of your hips to see if there's some kind of extra bone growths. Now, that being said, over my entire career the amount of people that I've worked with, very few times have I actually seen that someone did need to get intervention. I even myself on my MRI scans have extra little bone growths and I'm absolutely fine. It doesn't hinder me in any way.

[00:11:59]So, don't freak out, but do get it checked if symptoms aren't changing.