The hip motion that goes first

A kitchen-chair test that names your short side, then three sessions on it.

Sit down, knees a fist apart, and swing one foot out to the side while the knee stays pointing forward. That is hip internal rotation, the direction a stiffening hip surrenders before any other. Today you find out which of your two sides is short, and you get three days to move it.

⚡ 10-Second Pulse

Try it in your chair now. Which foot runs out of travel first?

👉 Right side 👈 Left side ⚖ Both the same

A hip moves in six directions, and they do not fail evenly. In the American Physical Therapy Association’s hip osteoarthritis guideline, restricted internal rotation is the single motion most predictive of arthritis showing on an X-ray. Flexion, the direction everybody stretches, is the least predictive.

Sutlive and colleagues built a checkable rule out of that in 2008, working with 72 people who had pain in one hip. Rotation under roughly 15 degrees sits among the flags. A short reading is a flag and not a diagnosis, but it does tell you which side to spend the weekend on.

Lost rotation shows up as tasks rather than as pain. The second sock. Swinging both legs out of a car. Turning to look behind you before you reverse.

7.6°

rotation gained

sessions to get it

0°

from the gentle pull

Those figures come from a 2018 trial in 60 people with hip osteoarthritis, run by Estébanez-de-Miguel’s group. Three sessions of traction along the length of the thigh bone added 7.6 degrees of internal rotation, but only where the pull was firm. The light and medium groups finished where they started, so a soft wiggle is not the working part.

That was a therapist doing the pulling. A 2016 pilot took 22 men with tight hips and compared a therapist’s version against the men doing it to themselves, and the self version held up. Twenty two healthy young men is a pilot, not proof, which is why I am asking for three days rather than three weeks.

Watch the knee, not the foot. If the knee swings outward along with the foot, your pelvis is turning on the seat and the reading is worthless. Sit back against the chair, keep the knee still, and test at the same hour each day. One caution: groin pain that wakes you at night, or a hip that buckles under you, is a doctor visit rather than a home plan.

✅ The 3-Day Fix

Today. Firm chair, sit tall, feet flat, knees a fist apart. Swing one foot out until it stops, then the other, and note which side runs short. On the short side: 10 slow swings, five seconds at the far point of each. Do that set twice before bed.

Saturday. Same swings, three sets of 10, with your palm on the outside of the knee pressing lightly inward while the foot travels out. Then stand, plant that foot, and turn your whole body away from it 10 times, letting the hip rotate under you.

Sunday. Retest from the same chair and compare with today, then spend the range: get out of the car with both feet down together, and put a sock on with the foot up on a stool.

I’m trying this → Join today’s streak

More Hip Wins

●	Leave the car in one move. Turn on the seat until you face the door, put both feet on the pavement together, then stand. Lifting one leg out at a time asks the hip for rotation it may not have this week.
●	Sock on a stool, not on a knee. Rest the foot on a low stool or the second stair, around knee height. Hauling the ankle across the opposite thigh demands the most rotation you own, on the morning you have the least.
●	Walk five minutes before you measure. Do it before every test, including the retest, or Sunday’s reading tells you about your warm-up instead of your hip.

Quick Vote

Which one catches you out more often?

🚗 The car seat

🧦 The second sock

From the Mailbag

“My right hip barely turns, but it doesn’t hurt. Is there anything worth doing?”

Ann, 61

Stiff and painless is the easiest version to work with, Ann. Range is what you spend on the sock and the car seat, and it answers to being asked for. Run the three days on the stiff side and keep the effort at the level of firm, never sharp. If the reading has not budged after two weeks of it, get the hip looked at rather than pushing harder.

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Keep moving,

The Ache Report

P.S. Photograph the test. Line your heels up on a floorboard seam or a tile edge, swing the foot to its stopping point, and take one picture looking straight down. A photo settles the before and after comparison; memory does not.

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The hip motion that goes first

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