Almost every week I hear this statement. “Mike, my hip has been killing me”. This will be followed up with the person inevitably rubbing their lateral glute or thigh, and me throwing down some knowledge. “Your hip?” I ask.

“Yes, my hip” they say.

I then get out my anatomy book or posters and play professor for about 3 minutes. Not in the condescending way I’m sure you’re imagining it happening, but with compassion and care for someone within the general public not having ever been informed of where their hip joint is (I’m sure one of these day’s I will be ranting about the American peoples’ lack of knowledge regarding their own anatomy, see Rotor Cup).

The hip, I say, can be found by doing a couple simple things.

• Find those bones that stick out in front of your hips (ASIS)
• Make the Roc-a-Fella hand sign
• Place your palms on those bones.

Next take one hand away and poke into the crux of one hand (between the thumb and the pointer finger), and boom, that’s roughly your hip joint.

Now , can I really argue that what these patient’s come in calling there hip isn’t really their hip? No, it’d be hard to call it something else, except the proximal lateral thigh, or lateral glute/trochanter yadda yadda yadda, nerd! But having our patients/clients having some awareness of what’s where in their body can only help us be better professionals and get better subjective reports. Last piece of advice I will give them, is that the true hip joint will often refer pain to the “groin” area.

Always Evolve,

Mike