Can’t Lift Leg To Put Pants On? 5 Exercises To Stop Pain When Lifting Leg To Put Pants On

3 Reason Why You Cant Lift Your Leg To Put Pants On

One really common reason why people have pain and/or difficulty with lifting their legs to get their pants on is because of hip arthritis.

But beyond just "arthritis" there are 3 things that you need to be able to do.

To lift your legs to get your pants on, you need to have:

1. Range of motion available to lift your leg
2. Strength to lift your leg
3. Strength and balance in the opposite leg to be able to stand on that leg while you're lifting the other leg to get your pants on

We're going to go over these three problems and provide solutions that you can use for each of them, so that you can get your pants on with less pain and difficulty.

Lack of Hip Flexion Range of Motion

Problem number one is the range of motion. If you don't have the necessary hip flexion range of motion to lift your leg to put your pants on, it won't matter even if you have the hip strength and balance.

To be able to get your pants on, you need to be able to reach down to your foot. If you can't reach your foot while you're sitting, then you're not going to be able to lift your leg that high when you're standing.

People generally think about only lifting their leg to get their pants on. However you need to bend forward and lift your leg up to put on their pants.

If you are already bent over, you're already flexed to about 90 degrees at the hip. So when you try to lift the leg to put your pants on from this bent over position to put on pants, it becomes difficult if you don't have enough range of motion.

To be able to get your pants on, you really need to be able to reach the bottom of your foot when you're sitting down. To do that, you've got to have roughly around 120 degrees of hip flexion.

If you don't have that much range of motion at the hip joint, that's the first place to start.

What can limit your hip flexion range of motion?

It can be the arthritis in the hip joint itself, but it can also be muscular issues or capsular issues that are preventing you from getting the range of motion.

The hip is a ball and socket joint. The "ball" rolls towards the front of the body and glides backwards in order to be able to lift your leg up.

If the muscles at the back of the hip are too stiff, then the muscle stiffness can limit your ability to lift your knee forwards or lift it up into hip flexion.

We'll address exercises to improve your range of motion later in this post.

Lack Of Hip Flexion Strength

Once you've gained the range of motion to be able to lift your leg high enough passively, then you need to start to develop the strength to be able to do that actively.

When you're trying to get your pants on, you're bent over to 90 degrees, and then you're trying to lift that last 20 or 30 degrees actively.

As a result, you need to strengthen your hip flexors when they're already in a shortened position.

 

Lack of Lower Extremity Balance

You can start step three once you have both the range of motion and strength to hold your thigh in a shortened hip flexed position. Step three is balance training in order to hold the hip in a flexed position while standing on the other leg as this is required to don your pants.

5 Exercises To Stop Hip Pain When Lifting Leg To Put Pants On

2 Hip Range of Motion Exercises

One way to improve your hip range of motion from a sitting position is just taking your hands and putting them underneath your knee and then using your hands to lift the knee up toward your chest.

Stretching the back of the hip is another exercise that can help lift your leg up to put on pants. The piriformis is the most common muscle that people think of, but there are six little muscles in the back of your hip that can limit your mobility.

One way to stretch those muscles is trying to cross the ankle of one leg over the other.

However, you may also have difficulty crossing your leg if you have difficulty lifting your leg.

An alternative is bringing your heel up along the front of the shins of the other leg.

You can go up as high as you can comfortably tolerate and just hold it in that position with your hands. You can place your foot up on the opposite knee and gently stretch the muscle by gently bending forward.

However, you only want to stretch to the range of motion without causing groin pain.

A mild discomfort or pulling sensation at the side of the hip or at the back of your hip is okay. But you DON'T want groin pain.

With groin pain, the pelvis bone and the top part of the thigh bone is pushing against each other. This will only irritate and aggravate your symptoms.

Hip Flexion Strengthening Exercise

A good exercise is to lift your leg up to the end range and then practice holding it there. You can use your hands to lift the knee up, and then you use your hip flexor muscles to keep it there.

If you let go with your hands, you may notice that your thigh goes down a little bit.

You may also notice that your leg falls a little bit before you're able to hold it.

That means that you're strong once the muscle has been lengthened.  However, you're not strong with the muscle in the shortened position.

In order to be able to lift your leg put pants on, you need to be strong throughout your entire range of motion.

2 Balance Exercises To Help You Lift Your Leg To Put Pants On

Initially, a good exercise is to practice standing on one leg without bending over.

After mastering that exercise, you can progress to standing on one leg while bending over.

One example of this is is performing a golfer's bend of exercise.

You might need to hold on to something like a chair or a bed initially.

Once you have the balance and stability to do that, then bring the other leg all the way up.

When you reach a point where you can reach the bottom of your foot in a standing position, you're probably at a point where you're no longer having trouble putting your pants on.

Other Options If You Can't Lift Your Leg To Put Pants On

But what do you do if you have really bad hip arthritis?

What if you are stretching and you just can't get past that bone on bone groin pain?

If you turn your knee out a little bit, that does allow you a little bit more range of motion.

You might notice that you can get a little bit farther like this if you turn your knee out because it gives you more space in the hip joint.

If you still have trouble even when you turn your hip joint out, chances are you might be getting close to a hip replacement.

But if you're not ready for that or you have contraindications that keep you from having that type of surgery, or you just don't want to do it because you don't like the risks, there are alternatives.

One of the alternatives is using a pants helper.

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You just clip it onto your pants. Then you use the pants helper to pull up your pants.  This one also comes with a sock helper if you also have trouble lifting your leg to put on socks.

Summary

In summary, there are three reasons you can't lift your leg to put pants on if you have hip arthritis.

It might be that you lack hip range of motion,  hip flexor strength, or balance.

If you're missing any one of those three things, then you're probably going to have trouble lifting your leg to put your pants on.

If you live in the St Louis area and need help for hip arthritis, we'd be happy to help you here at More 4 Life.  Just tap the button below to request an appointment with one of our specialist physical therapists.

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