Do you have problems with hip stiffness, decreased ease of hip movement, hip pain, or groin pain?

Are you waiting for hip surgery and want to have the best outcome from your operation?

Do you have feelings of pinching in the front of your hip?

Or perhaps you have a sense of pain, giving way, or decreased power when doing specific sports movements – like sprinting or doing cutting maneuvers…

Hips can be subject to high training loads across many sports, especially those that involve explosive, multi-directional movement such as soccer, hockey, and volleyball.

If you have a hip problem that is getting in the way of reaching your goals, you’ve come to the right place!

Restoring happy and well-functioning hips is an area of special expertise at Synergy Physio + Pilates. With our ConnectTherapy™ approach we assess and treat hip and groin problems differently by not only doing a thorough assessment of your hip, but also by considering how the rest of your body might be influencing your hip symptoms. Our program is designed to find the root cause – or Driver – for your hip and groin pain.

Our bodies are very good at adapting to different injuries, repetitive activities, and movement habits over time, but sometimes we start to lose options in our bodies and this puts more load on our hips. Research shows that non-optimal movement strategies and training habits can put additional stress on the hip joint.

For example, if you’ve injured your neck or ribcage in the past, this could change your movement patterns and muscle balance around your whole torso, change your trunk rotation control, and create non-optimal forces through your hip joint. So in order to resolve your hip pain, we may need to treat your “Thoracic Rings” or your neck dysfunction.

Or, perhaps you’ve had multiple ankle sprains or an old foot injury – maybe even many years ago – that you never really had treated or did any rehab exercises for – and even though your foot doesn’t hurt, the way you transfer loads and forces through your foot is creating more load on your hip and that is the actual “Driver” or cause of your hip pain. So in this case, treating your foot/ankle is actually the “master key” to unlock treatment success for your hip problem.

So while hip pain is common, there are many different reasons why you as an individual have hip problems, and therefore we need to figure out the specific treatment pathway that is best for you.

If you’ve been frustrated because of only temporary relief from hip treatments, or if you find that treatment to your hip has made minimal change, it’s likely that you need treatment to other areas of your body to relieve your hip pain. We can help!

If you’re waiting for surgery, or recovering from surgery, our whole-body approach will also give you the best chance of recovering well from your hip surgery and having the best outcomes.

Informed by the latest research in sports medicine and orthopaedics, the ConnectTherapy model gives our therapists a comprehensive assessment algorithm (the Drivers Diagnostic Chart™) to figure out where in your body is the most important area to focus treatment – in order to get the biggest and most efficient improvements in your hip symptoms and function.

We then design a targeted, individual program to treat your Drivers of your hip problem. This involves teaching you self-management tools and powerful exercises called “Reset” exercises that optimize your hip movement patterns and relieve symptoms – and that give you control over your symptoms.

At Synergy we also use unique and innovative treatment techniques and exercise progressions created by physiotherapist Dr. LJ Lee that will not only relieve your pain, but make you stronger and more confident in your hip and your whole body – to reach your movement goals!

What does the program involve?

An in-depth ConnectTherapy Assessment

First, we take a detailed history – we want to hear your story. This gives us information about how you have loaded your hips through your life, and the various different influences that may be impacting your hip symptoms. We want to know what activities are meaningful to you – based on your challenges and goals.

Your story informs our physical examination – we the assess how your body moves through meaningful movements such as running, squatting, and lunging.

We will determine the Driver of your hip pain (read more about Drivers on the ConnectTherapy page)

We will conduct standardized measurements of range of motion, strength, as well as specific joint tests. These allow us to compare treatment results over time and provide a common language for us to communicate with your other healthcare providers to optimize your care.

ConnectTherapy Treatment

We will restore optimal movement strategies throughout your whole body to best optimize your hip and groin movement, loading, and mechanics.

Specific exercise programming will be prescribed based on your Drivers & your goals – if you have a Thoracic Ring Driver, we’ll give you specific Thoracic Ring exercises and progressions. If you have a Foot Driver, there are innovative ConnectTherapy ways we train your feet!

We’ll consult with other healthcare providers and your athletic support team as needed.

Since surgery and other procedures are often pathways our patients are considering, we offer to communicate our assessment and treatment findings with your healthcare team to give them an update on your progress.

Book an appointment today to get started on your pathway to happier hips!