How to Realign Your Hips

How to Realign Your Hips

You may experience a misalignment of your hips for numerous reasons. Commonly, it is due to an imbalance of strength in the pelvis muscles, causing the muscles, joints, and bones of the pelvis to misalign. If you want to know how to realign the hips, continue reading to learn numerous exercises that can correct and strengthen the pelvic muscles and relieve tension between them.

How to Realign Your Hips
Here are 11 exercises that can help realign your imbalanced hips. Read carefully and follow the steps to get perfect hip and legs.

1. Pelvic Tilts


Pelvic tilts help to strengthen the pelvic muscles, correcting misalignment of the hips. This exercise can be performed as follows:

• Lie on the floor with your knees bent and your head, shoulders, back, arms and feet lying flat. For those who are pregnant, leaning against a wall is a safer alternative.


• Press your lower back against the floor (or wall) so as to brace your abdominal (stomach) muscles.


• Hold this position for around ten seconds whilst maintaining a normal breathing pattern.


• Repeat up to 12 times per day.

2. Prone Hip Extensions

This exercise works to strengthen lower back and leg muscles on your weaker side, but pregnant women should avoid it.

• Lie face down with a pillow underneath your hips.


• Bend your knee on the weaker side, raising the bottom of your leg.


• Whilst the knee is bent at a 90 degree angle, slightly raise the upper leg whilst keeping the knee bent.


• Slowly lower the leg, returning to starting position.


• Do 8 repetitions, 3 times per week. Eventually you should increase repetitions to 12, and add an ankle weight to the leg that you elevate.

3. Side Hip Abductions


By stretching the lower back and outer legs, this exercise is a great answer to how to realign your hips.

• Lie on the side that is strongest, and fold your arm to rest your head within. Bend the leg on the floor slightly for extra equilibrium.


• With the leg on your weaker side straight, slowly raise it by about 45 degrees.


• Lower your weaker leg and rest for a couple of seconds before repeating for 8 repetitions.


• Repeat 2-3 times per week, increasing to 12 repetitions as you progress, eventually adding ankle weights.

4. Iliotibial Band Stretch

Iliotibial band, the connective tissue, runs from your knee, up the side of your leg to your outer pelvis. When the hips become misaligned, the iliotibial band can become inflamed and require stretching. Note that pregnant women should avoid this exercise as it may cause you to fall.

• Stand sideways next to a wall and cross the leg facing away from the wall behind the other leg.


• Lean the side of the hip with the crossed leg back toward the wall until you feel a stretch. Hold for 30 seconds.


• Rest and repeat 4 times, then swap sides and repeat anther 4 times.

5. Seated Side Straddle Stretch


This works to stretch the hip adductor muscles to realign your hips:

• First, sit on the floor and stretch your legs outward and apart.


• Next, place both of your hands onto the shin of one leg and lean as far as you can towards your hands.


• Hold this position for 30 seconds, return to the starting position and rest for a further 30 seconds before repeating the stretch on the other side.


• Repeat for 4 repetitions on each side, 8 stretches in total per day.

6. Knees to Chest

The next exercise helps solve the question of how to realign your hips is knees-to-chest exercise. It not only corrects misalignment in hips, but also soothes hip pain pertaining to pregnancy.

• Lie flat on your back and bend your knees, keeping your head, shoulders, back, hips and feet flat on the floor.


• Whilst keeping your back on the floor, bend one knee toward your chest as far as possible.


• Hold for 30 seconds before returning to the starting position.


• Rest for 30 seconds before repeating with the other leg.


• Continue to do 4 repetitions on each leg daily.

7. Planks


Planks strengthen your abdominal muscles and other muscle groups, help to hold your hips in place, and build core strength.

• Begin with a downward facing dog position with arms shoulder-width apart.


• Prop your body up so as you are simply resting on your toes and lower arms.


• Hold for 30 seconds. Try to increase the amount of time you can hold the plank to one minute.


• Variations can eventually be added, such as side-planks or single-leg planks.

8. Use Resistance Bands

With the help of resistance band training, you can work your hip muscles effectively by doing hip adductor and flexor exercises.

• Place one end of the band around a strong surface (such as a workout bench leg), and the other end around your ankle.


• Lift the leg either forward or outward until resistance is felt and slightly pushed past.


• Return to starting position and repeat for 10 repetitions, then do the same on the other leg.


• You can eventually increase the amount of repetitions as you become stronger.

9. Try Therapy
By undergoing physical therapy, one can work closely with a professional in the field of stretching and strengthening muscles. Physical therapists can help you with specific and targeted exercises to help with hip realignment, guiding you through such exercises and providing you with a specific regime you can practice at home.

10. Surgery
If you have learned how to realign your hips with exercises, tried and failed, then surgery may be the solution. Trained surgical specialists can operate on your hip to correct misalignment (known as a periacetabular osteotomy), wherein the shape and alignment of your hip is surgically altered. In more severe cases, an arthroplasty or hip replacement surgery can be carried out.