Stiff Hips in the Morning: A Warm-Up Routine

You get out of bed and the first few steps are stiff through the hips and groin. It loosens after a few minutes of walking and you forget about it until tomorrow.

Hips are the deepest major joint in the body, which changes what a heat pad can realistically do.

What heat reaches, and what it doesn’t

A heat pad warms tissue to about 1–2 cm deep. The hip joint sits under thick layers of muscle, well beyond that. More on that ceiling: what heat does under your skin, and why infrared pads don’t change it.

So heat won’t warm the joint itself.

What it does warm is the muscle around it:

• the glutes (butt muscles),
• the outside of the hip,
• the front of the thigh

Those muscles tighten around a stiff or painful hip and contribute a good share of what you feel. Relaxing them helps, and it makes movement easier, which is the part that does the work.

A morning routine

1. In bed, before you get up: lying on your back, slide one heel up towards your bottom and back down, 10 times each side. Then let the knees roll gently side to side.
2. Heat, 15 minutes: lie on your side with the pad over the outside of the hip and buttock, cover on, lowest setting.
3. Then the movements below.
4. Then walk. Five to ten minutes. Walking does more for a stiff hip than anything else here.

The same morning pattern turns up in arthritic knees and stiff hands.

Three movements

1. Knee to chest. Lying down, draw one knee towards your chest, hold 20 seconds. 3 each side.
2. Hip flexor stretch. Half-kneeling, back knee down, gently push your hips forward until you feel a stretch at the front of the back hip. Hold 30 seconds each side. Sitting all day shortens this area.
3. Bridges. On your back, knees bent, lift your hips off the bed and lower slowly. 10 times. Strengthening the glutes usually helps stiff hips more than stretching does.

Not all hip pain is the hip joint

Where you feel it is a useful clue:

• Groin and front of the hip: most likely the hip joint itself, including osteoarthritis.
• Outside of the hip, tender to lie on: usually the tendons and tissue over the bony point, not the joint. Heat and loading help; lying on that side aggravates it. See outer hip pain.
• Buttock, sometimes down the leg: often coming from the lower back. See sciatica: can a heating pad help? and piriformis and buttock pain.

It’s worth knowing which you have, because the exercises differ.

See a doctor or physio if…

• Morning stiffness lasts more than 30 to 45 minutes, or other joints are involved. That pattern points towards inflammatory arthritis; stiffness through the lower back and hips in a younger adult can be ankylosing spondylitis.
• You’re limping, or the hip gives way
• Pain wakes you at night, or you can’t lie on that side at all
• The hip is hot and swollen, or you have a fever
• Pain started after a fall, especially if you’re older. Get seen the same day.
• Walking distance is shrinking, or you’re avoiding stairs

Hip osteoarthritis responds well to a proper strengthening programme, and that usually delays or reduces the need for anything more. More on stiff joints generally: heating pad for knee and joint pain. A pad long enough to cover hip and buttock together is the practical size here: heat pad size guide.

Clinically reviewed by: Nigel Chua (Hand Occupational Therapist) & Louise Yow (Physiotherapist). This article is general information, not a diagnosis. electricheatpad.com sells electric heat pads.