Elite Athletes and Bad Hips

        

Why do so many elite level athletes like Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Delgado, Vincent Lecavalier and Rick DiPietro suffer serious hip injuries? And I'm not talking about a pulled groin here, I mean injuries so severe they require surgery followed by a significant amount of time off from their respected sports in order to properly rehab and fully recover. Recent studies show there has been a significant increase in the number of hip injuries in professional sports over the past few years and some experts attribute these injuries to certain training methods that have been developed and implemented by many sports teams to funny enough.. prevent knee injuries!

Have a look at this article from the New York Times.  The article explains how too much emphasis has been put on building leg strength over the past few years.  Training programs have been designed to specifically focus on leg strength to increase the strength of the muscles around the knee to help prevent knee injury.  Unfortunately this method of training also causes more pressure on the hips which leads to the labrum being squeezed between the ball of the femur and the socket of the hip which causes irritation and ultimately a tear in the labrum.  Not good..

Other studies attribute some of these hip injuries to over developed core muscles which become too strong and powerful and have too much torque for the hips to handle.  It's also been suggested that starting sports too young and playing them too often before the body has a chance to fully mature can also contribute to developing bad hips later on in life.