Your Hip X-Ray May NOT Explain Your Pain

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Stage four hip arthritis is at the heart of today's story. We're going to learn what stage four hip arthritis really means and we're going to see what happens when you face it head on.

[00:00:11]Susan's in her late 60s. She likes long bike rides, weight training, skiing, but one day taking care of her 140 lb dog, everything changes. She hurts her hip and everything goes from bad to worse.

[00:00:24]The hip pain gets debilitating and all the biking, skiing, training are gone.

[00:00:29]No more. She sees a chiropractor, gets dry needling done, and nothing works.

[00:00:34]She sees an orthopedic doctor, and boom, stage four hip arthritis. You need a hip replacement, no ifs, ands, or buts.

[00:00:42]Stage four arthritis is as bad as it gets. So, now you've got a highly trained surgeon showing you the images that prove that you are in the worst possible situation. So, what did Susan do? She ran across some of my YouTube videos and started listening and doing a few routines. She started doing some of the free workouts in my free body rebuilding basics program that you can get on my website, and then she started doing workouts from my healthy hips program. And I hope you're ready to have your lack of motivation slapped in the face. "After only 2 weeks, I'm sleeping about 3 to 4 nights a week and have very little pain lying down. I'm doing the healthy hips workouts and stretching.

[00:01:16]I've been so encouraged that I have started doing upper body training again along with a few minutes on the spin bike. Pretty awesome, right? But, there's a big butt here. Progress is rarely, if ever, linear. My program is not a miraculous quick fix that heals you in 2 to 3 weeks." And she's got more to her note that provides a big learning moment for everybody. She says, "The pain still flares up when I work out, but I am seeing my strength increase and am determined to go slow and safe to achieve my goals. I am getting better.

[00:01:48]Though I'm not there yet, I am determined to integrate this process into my everyday life for the rest of my life." So, The lesson is Susan has the exact right attitude. She's remembering that slow is safe and fast is foolish.

[00:02:02]She's dedicating time. She's set the expectation that this will be a process of learning how to train the body in a balanced way for the rest of her life.

[00:02:13]Second big lesson is she is paying attention to what specifically causes issues for her. Because there's no such thing as magic workouts, different bodies can respond in different ways to the same stimulus. The third big point requires us to ask a big question. Why is she still having flare-ups? If you're a surgeon, you might argue that duh, it's because of the stage four arthritis. But that wouldn't explain how the onset of pain was so sudden and it wouldn't explain how she got great progress with two weeks of just plain exercise. But what would explain the flare-ups is that she's not breaking patterns. Let me explain. Because we know Susan is an endurance gravel biker, we can guess that her pedaling pattern is pretty strong and like many passionate athletes, she's gone right back to training that pattern in the gym on a spin bike. Heads up, the general advice I'm about to give to Susan is probably going to be helpful for you, too. If you are already good at the pedaling pattern and your livelihood doesn't depend on continuing to train it, focus on improving other patterns.

[00:03:20]Not only will it help your body feel more comfortable in daily life, but it'll probably make your pedaling pattern start feeling a lot better, too.

[00:03:28]Consider that locking into a hip flex position, similar but not exactly the same as sitting in a chair and doing 20,000 alternating leg presses a week might not be the perfect way to train fully functional hips. And it's not like biking is alone as a villainous sport.

[00:03:45]Most sports lock your hips into a specific limited range. Think of sitting on a surfboard, jogging, golfing, or soccer. Unless you're a gymnast or a rock climber, you're rarely testing the strength and length of your hip muscles.

[00:03:59]And I'm speaking from personal experience here. I've done this to my body with hockey, surfing, and pretty much any other physical hobby I've ever gotten into. As soon as I would get a little progress and get rid of some pain, I just jump right back into the same patterns that were causing the problem in the first place. The point is, if you don't train your range of motion in control regularly, you will lose it. And while it's common to believe that arthritis explains our loss of range of motion and the increasing amounts of joint pain we get as we get older, there actually isn't a lot of science to back this up. If Susan's hip pain is from bone-on-bone stage four arthritis, how did two weeks of exercise drastically improve her symptoms? The answer is in a 2015 study that you probably won't hear about from your doctor or surgeon, but you might hear about from crazy people on the internet who think exercise is really important.

[00:04:51]In that study, they found that only 9 to 15% of people with frequent hip pain had signs of arthritis in an X-ray. And only about 20% of people with X-ray signs of arthritis had frequent hip pain. And the frequency and intensity of hip pain that you experience did not correlate at all to the level of arthritis in an X-ray.

[00:05:13]In other words, your hip pain and what you saw in X-rays were completely uncorrelated unrelated. Actually, you might hear about this study from a surgeon, but the way they interpret it is really funny.

[00:05:25]They'll say, "Well, look, people with hip arthritis don't always show it in their X-rays. Therefore, we still have to treat their hip arthritis." If you're wondering what it then means to even have hip arthritis, well, that lack of correlation, by the way, is true whether you're looking at the hips, the knees, the shoulders, or the spine.

[00:05:45]And yes, I will have links down below for all the angry skeptics out there.

[00:05:49]All of this is why I believe it's important to ATM, always think muscles when you're dealing with chronic joint pain. And I want to be really clear about two things here. First, I'm not a doctor, so my opinion is not a medical opinion and it may not apply to you.

[00:06:04]Second thing is I'm not saying surgery is always bad. I've seen some people get hip surgery because there was no exercise they could do to even unlock their hips and surgery for whatever reason helped. In my mind, if you have debilitating hip pain, it makes the most sense to try exercise first and then move on to the more invasive options if exercise fails. But again, you don't have to listen to me. I'm just some guy on the internet. Of course, you want to rule out the bad lower probability stuff like tumors, infections, total bone rot, or flesh-eating bacteria. And then focus on finding exercises, movements, and habits that nourish your hips or your shoulders or your back or your knees or whatever it is that you're struggling with. If you want some guidance on that journey, be sure to check out my programs which are linked down below after you hear the rest of Susan's message. I want to be one of those 80-year-old ladies I see on YouTube that still train and do any activity they want to do. I look forward to seeing that video and hitting the like button on that video, Susan. Also, you should hit the like button and subscribe to this channel if you like inspiring messages like this one. I now know that there is a way out of this pain and I'm sure in a few months I will be better than ever. I appreciate you so very much. Susan, I thank you for taking the time to write this message and thank you for the trust that you placed in me and also in yourself. I'm glad my own battle with chronic pain inspired you and I know your story is now going to inspire thousands of other people as well. If you found Susan's story inspiring, drop a comment down below. And if you're looking for a practical, powerful program to retrain and rebuild your hips at home, check out the Healthy Hips program at uprighthealth.com/hh and it's also linked down below. For other concerns like shoulder or back pain or your posture, just check out my programs linked below or go to uprighthealth.com/diy and you can get the free Body Rebuilding Basics program if you go to that link.

[00:08:02]And if you want to do something to help your body feel better right now, check this video out right here and I hope you always remember that pain sucks, life show.