(Hip Osteoarthritis / Femoroacetabular Impingement)

This page is for general education only and isn’t a substitute for a professional evaluation. Every case is different — if something here sounds like you, talk to a licensed provider about your specific situation.

Looking for something more specific? This page covers general hip pain. We’re building out dedicated pages for specific diagnoses soon, including: Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) / Labral Tear, Proximal Hamstring Tendinopathy, Hip Flexor Strain, Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome (Hip Bursitis), and Snapping Hip Syndrome. (Not yet linked — check back soon.)

What is Hip Pain?

Hip pain often shows up somewhere you wouldn’t expect — the groin, the front of the thigh, sometimes even the knee. In active adults, it commonly comes from a loss of hip mobility and control that limits how well the joint rotates and absorbs load, whether that’s early osteoarthritic change or an impingement-type pattern.

The hip doesn’t act alone — how well it moves changes the load reaching your low back and knee, since your body will find that motion somewhere if the hip won’t give it up. Our approach: find the cause of the cause. That’s exactly what a movement-based evaluation is built to uncover.

How is Hip Pain diagnosed?

We start with your story — where exactly you feel it, what activities bring it on (walking, sitting, squatting, twisting), and how long it’s been going on. Then we assess your hip’s range of motion, strength (especially the glutes and rotators), and how you move through walking, squatting, and single-leg tasks.

Imaging can confirm arthritic changes, but it doesn’t tell the whole story — plenty of pain-free hips show the same findings on a scan. What matters more for your plan is what your evaluation shows about how your hip is actually moving and loading.

How is Hip Pain treated?

A movement-based plan typically includes:

• Restoring hip mobility, particularly rotation
• Building glute and hip strength and control to support the joint through daily movement and activity
• Retraining the specific movement — squatting, walking, single-leg loading — that reproduces your symptoms
• Gradually reloading walking, running, golf, or pickleball rather than avoiding the activities you enjoy

The plan isn’t generic; it’s built around your exam findings. Surgery, such as a hip replacement or arthroscopy, is appropriate for a minority of cases that don’t respond to a real course of rehab, and we’ll tell you plainly if that’s what we’re seeing.

What’s the long-term outlook?

The outlook is genuinely good — many people with hip arthritis on imaging never develop significant symptoms, and even those who do can meaningfully improve pain and function without surgery.

The strongest predictor of a good outcome isn’t what a scan shows — it’s whether the underlying mobility and strength deficits actually get addressed, rather than just avoiding the movements that bring on pain.

Why start with a PT evaluation?

Most hip pain doesn’t require medication, injections, or surgery to resolve — it requires understanding why it’s happening and a guided plan to correct it. Once you understand your specific movement pattern and get expert guidance to address it, you have what you need to get out of pain and Return 2 the activities you care about — without the cost, downtime, or risk that comes with more invasive options.

References

1. Hip Pain and Mobility Deficits—Hip Osteoarthritis: Revision 2025. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2025;55(11). doi:10.2519/jospt.2025.0301

Nothing on this page is medical advice, and it’s not a diagnosis of your specific situation — think of it as a starting point for understanding what might be going on, not a replacement for being seen. If you’re dealing with this and want an actual answer specific to you, book a free phone consult or reach out — we’re happy to talk before you ever commit to anything.