Hip-friendly exercises

Upper-body, core and cardio exercises that do not load the hip, to keep training with bursitis, gluteal tendinopathy or other hip pain.

The hip is involved in almost every leg and glute exercise: squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts, lunges and the abductor and adductor machines. With bursitis, gluteus medius tendinopathy, arthritis or groin pain, those exercises can make the pain worse.

In the meantime, you can keep training your upper body (on machines, seated or chest-supported) and part of your core, plus leg exercises that work from the knee, like the leg extension and leg curl, which generally do not stress the hip joint.

Below are the exercises in our catalog that do not load the hip according to our classification. To get back to glute training, a professional can tell you where to start and in what range of motion.

72 exercises do not load this joint.

Lower body

Quads

• Leg extension

Hamstrings

• Leg curl (seated or lying)
• Nordic hamstring curl

Calves

• Standing calf raise
• Seated calf raise
• Leg press calf raise

Upper body

Chest

• Barbell bench press
• Incline dumbbell press
• Machine chest press
• Push-ups
• Pec deck fly
• Cable crossover

Triceps

• Parallel bar dips
• Cable triceps pushdown
• Overhead triceps extension
• Skull crusher
• Bench dips

Shoulders

• Standing overhead press
• Seated dumbbell shoulder press
• Machine shoulder press
• Dumbbell lateral raise
• Cable lateral raise
• Front raise
• Reverse pec deck
• Face pull

Back

• Pull-ups
• Assisted pull-ups
• Lat pulldown
• Straight-arm cable pulldown
• Barbell bent-over row
• One-arm dumbbell row
• Seated machine row
• Single-arm cable row
• Seated cable row

Biceps

• Barbell curl
• Biceps curl (machine or seated dumbbell)
• Hammer curl
• Cable curl

Core

Abs

• Machine crunch
• Standing cable crunch
• Floor crunch
• Reverse crunch
• Dead bug
• Lying leg raise
• Flutter kicks
• Scissor kicks
• Single-leg lowering
• Hollow body hold
• Tabletop crunch
• Toe touch crunch
• Front plank
• Ab wheel rollout
• Captain's chair leg raise
• Hanging leg raise
• Mountain climbers
• Farmer's carry

Obliques

• Bicycle crunch
• Heel touches
• Side plank
• Machine torso rotation
• Pallof press
• Cable woodchop
• Russian twist

Cardio

Cardio

• Stationary bike
• Recumbent bike
• Elliptical
• Rowing machine
• Incline treadmill walk
• Stair climber
• Arm ergometer
• Jump rope
• Burpees

If you have an injury, pain or a medical condition, check with a professional before doing this exercise.