Do Clamshells Help Hip Pain?

4 Reasons Clamshells Won't Fix Your Hip Pain

The goal of clamshells is to strengthen the gluteal muscles.

In particular, clamshells work on the gluteus medius and minimus muscles, which move your leg out to the side (abduction) and rotate your hip outward (external rotation).

Most people with hip pain - whether from hip arthritis, bursitis, or tendinitis - have weakness in their hip abductors and external rotators.

So doing clamshells makes sense in theory.

However, in reality clamshells may not help hip pain as much as you'd think.

Here are four reasons why:

1. Low-Level Exercise

Clamshells are good for neuromuscular re-education, but they're low-force exercises.

Therefore, they don't provide enough resistance to meet the functional demands of activities like walking, climbing stairs, running, or jumping.

2. Not Functional

Clamshells are performed lying down, which is not how we function in daily life.

Even if you use enough resistance, clamshells don't don’t necessarily train your glute muscles to work correctly during standing activities.

3. Limited Frequency

Since clamshells are done lying down, you'll likely do them only once or twice a day.

This isn’t nearly enough to counteract the activity you do during the other 16 waking hours of the day.

4. Common Mistakes

Most people perform clamshells incorrectly. To get the benefits, you need to do them right.

In the next section, we'll discuss how to do that.

How to Do Clamshells Properly

Clamshells aren’t a "bad" exercise; they just aren’t always enough on their own.

If you're going to take the time to do them though, make sure to do them correctly.

Here’s how:

• Lie on your side with your legs slightly bent.
• Lift your top leg while keeping your feet together. Avoid rolling backwards, which engages your back muscles instead of your glutes.

• Place one hand on your hip and the other on your glutes to ensure proper muscle activation.
• Lift your leg slightly, hold the top position for about 10 seconds, then lower it. Do 5-10 repetitions with strict form.

For more resistance, slightly separate your heels and keep your knee higher than your heel during the lift.

For even greater resistance yet, straighten your knee so that you're lifting the entire weight of your leg.  Make sure to keep your body rolled forward, but try to turn your toes up toward the ceiling.

3 Hip Exercises That Are Better Than Clamshells

Here are three alternative exercises that can be more effective than clamshells for relieving hip pain:

1. Standing Hip External Rotation Weight Shift

Stand with feet hip-width apart and perform a clamshell-like motion with most of your weight on one leg and the other leg just touching the ground for balance.

This exercise is more functional and can be done throughout the day.

2. Single Leg Stand with Hip External Rotation

As you get stronger, progress from standing weight shifts to single-leg stances, maintaining external rotation.

This helps improve balance and stability.

3. Single Leg Mini Squats with Hip External Rotation

Perform mini squats on one leg while keeping the knee turned out.

This builds strength and stability in a more functional manner.

Conclusion

Hopefully this post helped you get pointed in the right direction toward relieving your hip pain. Keep in mind though that there are many different types of hip pain, and each person's needs may be a little bit different.

The FASTEST way to relieve hip pain is to get help from a healthcare professional who treats hip pain regularly.

Need Help For Hip Pain?

If you live in the St. Louis area and need help to relieve hip pain and get back to doing the activities you enjoy, our specialists here at More 4 Life would be happy to help you.

Tap the button below to schedule a phone call with one of our specialists to learn how we can help you.

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