Hip arthritis (osteoarthritis or OA) often means hip pain, stiffness, and soreness. The pain interupts your life sometimes forcing you to stop doing things you enjoy.

The primary symptoms of OA are pain, aching, stiffness, swelling and weakness. These symptoms often interfere or prevent weight bearing activities - walking, squatting, certain kinds of exercise for example.

The condition results from a weakening and deterioration of the articular cartilage lining the bones of the joint.

Articular cartilage is a tough, rubbery and slick substance that covers the end your bones. Its job is to provide a nearly friction free environment while also protecting the bones from excessive force.

It's a simple question. 

"Why does my hip hurt?"

And you'll find all kinds of answers from tight hamstrings, to weak hip abductor muscles, to crooked feet, to weak core muscles and a lot of other theories.

But Hip Arthritis pain is primarily a joint problem. The tough, rubbery tissue that covers the end of the bones, articular cartilage, is not sturdy enough to take the pounding that comes with with everyday activity, exercise, or sports.

Are your leg muscles weak? Most likely, yes. Weak hip muscles is part of the problem.

But the common approach for hip joint pain focuses on two things: muscle strength and flexibility.

Why is that? Why would you focus on muscles for a joint problem ?

Because, Conventional Wisdom believes you can't do anything about weak or injured joints.

This is the prevailing opinion of many in the medical world despite evidence to the contrary (explained in the book). Not all practitioners follow this muscle-first belief system, but many are still not treating people with knee joint pain optimally.

If you have pain, weakness, loss of mobility from hip joint pain, Conventional Wisdom's approach is:

The good news is there's a way to boost the strength of your joint and leg muscles without making your hip feel bad.

The concept supporting this idea is based on the science of mechanobiology - how graduated pressure can be used to strengthen your tissues and joints..

Although many in the medical word believe you can't do anything about a weak or injured joint, I debunk this thinking in my book in detail. It's not just my opinion. It's from a large number of scientific studies that support the idea that joints respond to mechanical force but it's how the force is applied and used that makes the difference.

Better Hips, Better Life is a multimedia, e-book (available from Amazon.com) that reveals, a step-by-step, advanced, scientifically-based program designed to help people with hip pain from arthritis improve their hip health and strength.

Who This Book is For:

Doug Kelsey (“DK”) is a physical therapist, author and teacher whose specialty is helping people build resilience - fitness across multiple domains - to enhance their performance, health, and life (professional CV here).

“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.