Hip drop while running isn’t something we get asked about often in our Oconomowoc clinic, but it shows up constantly. There are two types of runners who tend to find their way to this topic: competitive runners looking to optimize their form, and recreational runners who developed hip, knee, foot, or back pain, did some googling, and realized their hips might have more to do with it than they thought.
Either way, you’re in the right place.
Why Hip Drop While Running Occurs
Hip drop while running happens when the opposite side of the pelvis drops after you land on a leg for support. It can occur for a number of reasons, including:
- Weak hip abductors
- Decreased hip flexibility
- Over-pronation of the foot
- Over-striding
Here’s the important part: figuring out why your hip drop is occurring matters before you jump into exercises to fix it. If you target the wrong cause, you won’t fix the problem. Let’s break each one down.
Hip Drop: Matching the Cause to the Fix
Hip Drop Caused by Weak Abductors
The hip abductors connect the pelvis to the thigh on the outside. When they’re weak, they can’t keep the top of the pelvis pulled toward the stance leg, so the pelvis drifts upward on that side, and the opposite side drops. Over time, this puts extra stress on the outer hip and thigh and is a common driver of IT band syndrome if left unaddressed.
A good starting point is side-lying hip abduction. That said, if you’re running more than 15 miles per week, you’ll want to build beyond that baseline. For recreational runners, we target 3×10 on each side of a modified side plank hip abduction, shown below.
For competitive runners, we’re looking for 3×15+ reps of a full side plank with the top leg lifted straight.
One important note: these exercises are harder to do correctly than they look. When we assign them in the clinic, we spend a few minutes walking through the common compensations. Because when those creep in, the exercise becomes significantly easier and significantly less effective. If it feels easy, there’s a good chance something’s off.
Hip Drop Caused by Decreased Hip Flexibility
Tight hips can make it harder for the hip abductors to do their job. This isn’t because they’re weak, but because they’re working overtime against tight hip adductors.
The hip adductors don’t get much attention, but they’re one of the largest muscle groups in your thigh. They help drive your legs forward and backward (essentially all of running), bring your thighs together, and are the muscle that powers you out of the bottom of a squat. When they’re excessively tight, they pull the thighs closer together than they should be. This shifts the knee inward, increases the angle of the thigh, and creates a longer lever arm. This means the gluteus medius has to generate even more force just to keep the hip stable.
Runners with tight hip adductors often run with a very narrow base of support. Their feet may be close together, or they may even cross the midline of their body with each step. Both patterns increase stress on the hip and make hip drop more likely.
If the adductors are weak, strengthening is the answer. A Copenhagen plank is the most commonly prescribed exercise for this. If they’re quite weak to start, standing hip adduction is a good entry point:
If they’re tight due to excessive tension rather than weakness, a half-kneeling adductor stretch is a great way to start loosening things up:
Hip Drop While Running from Excessive Pronation
What your foot does affects what your hip does — and vice versa. Think of it like holding a baseball bat: your hands control where the far end goes. The leg is an interconnected chain, and what happens at one joint ripples up and down.
Pronation is when the foot flattens more than it should. This causes the knee to track inward, which, just like with tight adductors, increases the lever arm at the hip and forces the gluteus medius to work harder than it should. Chain reaction.
There are two things you can do here. First, address the foot itself. If pronation is driven by weakness or excessive foot flexibility, strengthening the small muscles that support the arch can help. Our go-to exercise for this is shortfoot:
You can also work a bit further up the chain by strengthening the tibialis posterior. This is a calf muscle that runs underneath the foot and supports the arch. The stronger it gets, the more it resists excessive pronation. Banded ankle inversion is a great starting point:
Second, check your footwear. Worn-out shoes lose their arch support, and if the inner tread is worn down, it’s time for a new pair. When shopping for shoes, look for options with a stability feature on the medial (inner) side. This helps keep the foot in a more neutral position and can reduce how much pronation occurs with each step.
Overstriding: An Unexpected Cause of Hip Drop While Running near Oconomowoc
This one is less common, but worth knowing about. Overstriding increases the ground reaction force with each foot strike, which means every muscle has to work harder to stabilize. Even if your hip abductors are strong enough at a normal cadence, pushing your stride out further may exceed their capacity to control the pelvis.
A simple first step: increase your cadence and see if it helps. Here’s a quick tutorial on what your cadence should be, how to assess it, and how to adjust it.
Fix Hip Drop While Running near Oconomowoc
If you’ve worked through all of this and still aren’t sure what’s driving your hip drop, or you’d rather just have someone figure it out for you, reach out. We’re runners ourselves, and we understand that stopping isn’t really an option. Unless something is truly broken, we work with you to keep running while we sort out what’s causing the problem.
We offer a free phone consultation to learn more about what’s going on and see if we’re a good fit. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, fill out the form here and we’ll take it from there.
Want to see more articles like this one? Sign up below!