Why Band Distraction Will NOT Fix Hip Impingement
If you have hip impingement (often manifests as groin pain or front hip crease pain) you may have searched YouTube and you probably found a couple of videos of people saying that band hip distraction can fix hip impingement. I want to make this video to let you know that that's probably not the case.
It can be very helpful AND it can make things worse if you do it wrong.
Anterior Femoral Glide
For example in the "band hip flexor stretch" from the video, the band is pulling you forward. For some people with really tight hip flexors this can feel great. For someone who has FAI femoral acetabular impingement or hip impingement it can make things worse.
The reason is that sometimes what goes along with FAI / hip impingement is anterior femoral glide. This means the hip bone or femur can glide forward in the socket when you do hip flexor stretches and it can cause pain
A Systems Approach
Another reason why band hip flexor stretches will not fix hip impingement is because you have to address the tissue quality before you can stretch a muscle. So that means you have to make the hip flexors softer and more supple before you can stretch them otherwise you can keep getting pain.
The other major stretch that some people advise is to do a pigeon pose with a lateral band distraction or a posterior band distraction. That's great but the same problem exists which is for some people who have hip impingement that try to do a pigeon pose stretch and they get...you guessed it...hip impingement!
So again, these people need to address the density of their muscles by doing massage in and around the hip joint before they can even get into a position like pigeon pose. Once that happens then, yes, that stretch can be helpful because this will pull the hip into a more posterior position in the socket (which usually means less hip impingement.)
The Band "Hip Capsule" Mobilization
The most popular exercise that "experts" say totally fixes hip impingement is the band distracted hip capsule mobilization. This is basically where you are kneeling and the band is distracting your hip posteriorly and you move your leg into internal or external rotation and then you drop your trunk to go into hip flexion. Theoretically this mobilizes the hip capsule and gives you freedom from any hip impingement.
Unfortunately, just like I've been saying about the previous two exercises...it IS a great exercise...but its not the "end-all-be-all."
When I was fixing my hip impingement several years ago this exercise WAS very helpful but it couldn't take me all the way out of hip impingement. To accomplish that I needed to address the "junky" tissue / the dense muscles deep, deep, deep around the hip AND learn to move better.
If I only did this "band distracted hip capsule mob" then I would only be addressing ONE system of the body.
Some Bodies Aren't Ready...
Since overcoming my own hip woes, I've talked to hundreds of people with hip impingement who have visited the FAI fix website. What happens is they email me and they say:
"Hey, I did that band distracted hit mobilization and it hurts i can't...i can't get into it. "
So I tell them what I just have been explaining but i also say one little tweak might help which I explain in more detail in the video above.
The take home message? Any band distracted hip mobilization is not going to be the end-all fix. You've got to do stretching things, you got to do tissue quality things & we've got to do some strengthening things. so it has to be a complete system to fix hip impingement.
Check out our systematic approach to hip impingement at...
Good luck! Talk to you soon!
About The Author
Shane Dowd is a sports performance and mobility coach. He specializes in injury prevention and flexibility for athletes.
