Part of Greater trochanteric pain syndrome
How do you sit with gluteal tendinopathy?
Warning signs, and when to get help
How should you sit with gluteal tendinopathy?
Learn the geometry once and you will never need a list of approved chairs.
One group needs a different answer. If you have had a hip replacement or other hip surgery, your surgical team's restrictions come before everything on this page, so read what changes after hip surgery before you use anything here. If you have not had surgery on that hip, the rest of this page is written for you.
A seat that is kind to these tendons leaves your hips level with your knees or a little above them, and both feet flat on the floor, under your knees instead of out in front or tucked back. Your knees sit roughly hip width apart, not pressed together and not crossed.
Your weight is shared between both sitting bones instead of parked on one. And you get out of the seat before the hip starts asking.
Every one of those exists for a single reason. The gluteus medius and gluteus minimus tendons attach to the bony point at the top of your thigh bone. They are now regarded as a main local source of pain on the outside of the hip, so the condition is called gluteal tendinopathy or greater trochanteric pain syndrome rather than trochanteric bursitis (Grimaldi and colleagues, 2015). When the thigh travels across the midline of the body, those tendons are squeezed against the bone, and compression against bone combined with hard pulling is thought to be the combination they tolerate worst (Grimaldi and colleagues, 2015). Everything in the list above keeps the thigh on its own side of the line.
This is not a minor adjustment, even though it reads like one. The 2022 ISHA physiotherapy agreement asks patients to reduce load and compression through the outside of the hip, naming avoidance of hip adduction when sitting, standing or sleeping, and minimizing the factors that increase compressive load there (Disantis and colleagues, 2023). The two NHS leaflets behind this page say the same in plainer words: keep the hips higher than the knees, stay out of low chairs, limit sitting cross-legged, and do not stand with your weight hung on one hip.
The physio-led program in the LEAP trial paired this kind of advice with daily exercise, and it beat both a steroid injection and a wait and see approach. The trial team themselves put the advice no higher than that it may have been part of why the program worked (Mellor and colleagues, 2018). Posture did not cause your tendon problem and changing it will not cure it on its own. What it does is take hours of unnecessary load out of your day, and that is what makes the exercise worth doing. The greater trochanteric pain syndrome program is the exercise half.
If you have had a hip replacement or other hip surgery
If you have not had an operation on that hip, none of this section is for you, and the page picks up again at why does crossing your legs make it worse.
If you are in the first months after a hip replacement or other hip surgery, your surgical team decides which seats you may use, how low you may sit and which positions are allowed, and their instructions come first, ahead of everything on this page. OrthoInfo, from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, puts it plainly: the precautions you may be given cover sitting, bending and sleeping, and they vary from patient to patient depending on the surgical approach your surgeon used.
After an operation done from the back of the hip, the NHS list is not sitting with your legs crossed, not bending the hip more than 90 degrees, which is a right angle, not bending down to touch your feet or ankles, and not sitting in a low chair or on a low toilet seat or in a chair without arms, because you will have trouble getting up again. The Leeds Teaching Hospitals leaflet puts it as four movements to avoid: do not cross your legs or the midline of your body, do not bend the hips past 90 degrees, do not lift your knee above your hip, and do not twist your leg or waist. That third one is the most useful test to carry about with you, because in any seat that is too low your knee is already above your hip. How long the restrictions run varies, OrthoInfo saying usually the first 6 weeks and Leeds six weeks or longer for some people, and your own team sets your date.
After an operation done from the front, some surgeons restrict close to the opposite movements instead, taking the leg out behind you and turning it outward, and some teams now give no positional restrictions at all. So ask your surgeon or physio which approach was used and which restrictions you are under, or look at the leaflet you came home with, rather than working it out from this page. Two other instructions of theirs cut across this page: the NHS asks a new hip to sit in a reclining position, which is close to the opposite of what the rest of this page asks for a sore tendon, and it asks you to wait at least 6 weeks before driving, checking with your doctor that you are fit to drive. After an operation the new hip wins both arguments.
If you do not know which approach was used, the leaflet you came home with, your discharge letter and the ward that looked after you can all tell you, and the scar on its own cannot, because a scar on the side of the hip can belong to more than one approach. If you cannot reach anybody before you next have to sit down, use the stricter version in the meantime: a high, firm seat with arms, the hip not bent past a right angle, the knee no higher than the hip, nothing crossed, and no twisting on that leg. None of those is a problem after a front approach either, so it is the safe default while you are waiting to be told, and it is not a substitute for being told.
If the operation was a repair of these tendons themselves, which is sometimes done for this condition when nothing else has worked, two of the usual limits land squarely on sitting. In a review of 54 published American rehabilitation protocols for that operation, 78 percent advised against the leg traveling across the midline passively and 69 percent limited bending the hip to 90 degrees, which is a right angle (Anwunah and colleagues, 2026). So nothing crossed, at the knees or the ankles, and no seat that takes the hip past a right angle, until your own protocol says otherwise. Most of those protocols also kept your full weight off that leg for around the first 6 weeks, which changes how you get into and out of a seat as much as how you sit in it.
And one thing to carry into the rest of this page. Comfort is not the test after a hip replacement. A restricted angle can be passed without any pain at all, which is the opposite of how a sore tendon behaves, so judge a seat against the limits you were given rather than against how it feels.
Why does crossing your legs make it worse?
Because it is the compressed position, held deliberately, for as long as you are comfortable.
Put one knee over the other and look at where the upper thigh has gone. It has crossed the center line of your body, which rotates the top of the thigh bone and pushes the bony point outward into the tendons and the band of tissue lying over them. That is the mechanism in one movement (Grimaldi and colleagues, 2015). It is the same mechanism as lying on your good side without a pillow between your knees, and the same as standing with your weight on one hip.
What catches people out is the delay. Crossed legs rarely hurt while you are sitting; the hip objects when you stand up, or that night in bed, which is why nobody connects the two.
If you have a new hip, none of the above is why crossing your legs matters to you. Knee over knee takes the thigh across the body and turns it inward at the same time, and that pairing is what can lever a new hip out of its socket, which is why not crossing your legs appears on the restriction list after many hip replacements (NHS). It is not a question of how much it hurts, and whether crossing at the ankles is allowed is a question for your own team rather than for this page.
If you tend to cross without noticing, the thing to practice is both feet flat on the floor with the knees roughly hip width apart, which is dull and is the whole instruction. Crossing at the ankles is the half measure people reach for, and the Cambridge University Hospitals leaflet asks for time spent crossing the ankles or the legs to be kept to a minimum, so it is a smaller version of the same habit and not a fix. Moving your feet, or putting one foot slightly in front of the other, satisfies the fidget without taking either thigh anywhere.
The habit gets less attention than it deserves, since most people who cross their legs do it dozens of times a day. Why outer hip pain is worse at night covers the night version of the same problem, and a long day of it is one of the commonest triggers on outer hip pain flare ups.
How long can you sit before you should move?
There is no number, and this page is not going to invent one. Nobody has published a sitting tolerance for this condition.
What is dependable is the shape of it. An irritable hip tolerates less than a settled one, the same hip tolerates less at the end of a long day than at the start, and a good seat buys you considerably longer than a bad one. So the thing to track is not minutes but whether standing up hurts more than it did an hour ago.
The practical version is to move before the hip asks rather than after. Standing up for thirty seconds and shifting your weight between both feet is enough; this is not an exercise break. The trick that makes it stick is attaching it to something that was going to happen anyway, the end of an episode, a phone call, filling the kettle, so you are not relying on remembering.
If sitting is most of your working day, working from home and desk work covers the wider desk setup, and back pain when sitting covers the back half of the same problem. If what hurts while you sit is the back of the leg rather than the side of the hip, that is a different pattern, and sciatica pain when sitting is the page for it.
Chairs, seat height and cushions
Height does most of the work. A seat that leaves your hips below your knees lets both thighs roll inward and makes standing up the hardest movement of your day, and sitting high enough that your hips are level with or just above your knees undoes both at once. The Cambridge University Hospitals leaflet puts that first and asks for low chairs to be avoided.
The check takes a second. Sit back in the seat, look down, and if your knees are higher than your hip creases the seat is too low for you. On an office chair the lever under the seat raises it, and if your feet stop reaching the floor once it is high enough, put something firm under them instead of leaving them hanging, as low as it can be while your feet still rest on it, because a thick footrest pushes your knees back up above your hips and undoes what you just gained.
Firmness comes next. A soft seat lets you sink until the geometry you set up has quietly disappeared, and that is why a firm dining chair often beats an expensive armchair for this problem. Depth comes into it as well: a seat deep enough to support your thighs, without the front edge pressing into the back of your knees, keeps your feet where you put them.
Arms are the underrated one. Pushing up through both arms means you are not driving the whole movement through one hip, which is the moment a lot of people feel it.
A wedge cushion is the fix for a chair you cannot change. It is simply a cushion that is thicker at the back than the front. That raises your hips and tips your pelvis slightly forward, and the Cambridge leaflet suggests one. That is also why it does more than it sounds like it should: it is correcting the geometry, not adding padding. If the sitting bones themselves are the sore part rather than the side of the hip, that is a different problem with a similar trigger, and hamstring tendinopathy is the page.
Practice sit to stand on purpose, from the height you actually use, because the way you get out of a chair is where a day of good sitting is often undone.
Sitting in a car, and long drives
Car seats are the hardest seats most people meet, because they are low, soft, tilted backward and you cannot stand up in them.
What is adjustable, adjust. Raise the seat if it goes up, so your hips are not below your knees. Level the base so you are not sliding into a hollow at the back. Bring the seat close enough that your knees are not reaching for the pedals, because a long reach pulls the pelvis into a tilt. Then sit square, because leaning on the door or the armrest puts your weight on one side and drops the other hip.
Then plan the drive rather than the seat. Stops every so often, getting fully out of the car at each one, and a few dozen steps on level ground do more than any cushion. A firm cushion or a wedge on the seat base is reasonable if the seat will not rise.
Getting in and out has a technique of its own. Sit down on the seat first with both feet still outside the car, then swing both legs round together. Reverse it to get out: both legs out first, then stand. Done that way the thigh never crosses the body while it is carrying your weight. Leading with one leg into the footwell does the opposite.
That same method is the one the NHS gives after a hip replacement, easing yourself in backwards and swinging both legs round together, and the two sets of advice agree here. What does not change is that a car seat is low, soft and tilted back, so getting into one bends the hip a long way even done well. If you are still under hip precautions, have your team set the method, say whether the seat needs raising with a firm cushion and say whether you should be in a car at all yet, and remember the NHS advises waiting at least 6 weeks after a hip replacement before you drive, subject to your own surgeon's advice.
A long drive is a classic flare trigger, so if you have one coming, read it as a load to be planned for rather than a day off.
The seats you cannot change
Some seats are somebody else's. The approach is the same: find the geometry you can still control, and shorten the exposure.
Read this section differently if you are still under hip precautions after an operation. Everything in it is a way of making a seat that is too low usable, and a seat that is too low is the thing your restriction rules out rather than something to work around. Sitting forward on the edge of a low sofa still leaves the hip deeply bent, and the front edge is also the hardest place to stand up from. Take the firm high chair, stay standing, or ask your team what they want you to do in a house that has nothing suitable.
On a plane, the aisle seat lets you stand up without negotiating, which is worth more than legroom. A folded jacket or a cushion under the back of your sitting bones raises your hips a little. Keep both feet on the floor and skip the crossed ankles-and-knees position people fall into in a narrow seat.
In a cinema or a theater, an aisle or end seat does the same job. Sit back into the seat instead of slumping forward, and if the seat tips you back, something folded behind you helps.
On a low sofa at someone else's house, sit on the front edge instead of back in the cushion, or take the firm upright chair if there is one and nobody minds. A cushion from the same sofa, folded under you, is a free wedge. If you do perch forward, sit far enough back that the seat is properly under you, keep both feet flat and under your knees, and push up with a hand on the arm of the sofa, because the front edge of a soft seat is the easiest place to slide off and the hardest place to stand up from.
On the floor, both NHS leaflets behind this page ask you not to sit cross-legged while the hip is sore. The reason is not the one that governs the rest of this page: tailor sitting opens the thighs rather than carrying them across the body, and what it does instead is hold the hip flexed, turned out and open, which is close to the FABER position the trials use to provoke this condition because it loads the front of the gluteal tendons in tension (Mellor and colleagues, 2016). Floor sitting has a second cost the leaflets do not mention: getting down and back up again, which puts your whole weight through one hip at a time. Sitting on a cushion with your legs out in front, or leaning against something with your knees bent and feet apart, keeps the thighs where you want them and makes standing up easier. If you have fallen in the past year or feel unsteady on your feet, it is getting down and back up that is the part to leave out rather than the position: take a chair instead, and ask your doctor or physio about a falls check.
The floor is the one position on this page that a reader with a new hip should leave out altogether until their team says otherwise. Getting down to it and back up again bends the hip well past a right angle, usually with a twist somewhere in the sequence, and it is also where a fall happens. That is a precaution question rather than a tendon question, so it is theirs to answer and not something to try on a good day.
None of this needs to be permanent. It applies while the tendon is irritable, and it loosens as the strength work takes effect.
When to see a physio or doctor
Book a routine appointment with a doctor or physio if outer hip pain is stopping you sleeping or doing what you normally do, if it keeps coming back, or if it has not improved after 2 weeks of looking after it at home (NHS). Sorting out the seats will not substitute for the strength work, and a physio can set that properly and check that the pain is coming from where you think it is.
It helps to be able to describe the seat you actually spend your day in: how high it is, whether it has arms, how long you are in it, and what standing up out of it feels like. All of that is more use to a physio than a general question about posture. Exercises to avoid with outer hip pain covers the movements that get added on top, and outer hip pain covers the wider list of causes if you are not sure this is what you have.
Some signs need help faster, from an emergency visit to a doctor within a few days. They are listed under the warning signs below, each with its own timing. Several of them apply only to a hip that has been operated on, and each of those says so in its first words.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: you have had a fall or an injury and now have severe hip pain, or you cannot walk or put weight on the leg. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department. This can be a sign of a broken hip (hip fracture).
- Emergency: tingling or loss of feeling in the hip or leg after a fall or injury. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department.
- Emergency: pain, tingling, numbness or weakness in both legs, numbness or altered feeling around your genitals or bottom, or new trouble peeing or controlling your bladder or bowels. The same applies if you lose feeling in one leg. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away. These can be signs of pressure on the nerves at the base of the spine (cauda equina syndrome).
- Emergency: you have had a hip replacement and have sudden severe pain in your hip or groin, sometimes with a clunk or pop, and you cannot move the leg or put weight on it, or the leg suddenly looks shorter or turned in or out. Do not try to walk on it or push it back into place. Keep still and call emergency services or go to an emergency department, and do not drive yourself. Your new hip may have come out of its socket (dislocated), and a medical team needs to put it back.
- Emergency: your operated leg looks shorter than it did, or its foot turns in or out more than before, or the hip moves in an unusual way, even if the pain is not severe. Keep your weight off it and go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. If you are in severe pain or cannot move the leg, call emergency services.
- Emergency: since your operation, you suddenly become short of breath, you get chest pain or pain in your upper back that may be worse when you breathe in, you cough up blood, your heart is beating very fast, or you faint. Call emergency services straight away, even if your leg looks normal. These can be signs of a blood clot in the lungs (pulmonary embolism).
Get help today
- Same day: the hip is hot and swollen, the skin around it has changed color, or you have hip pain with a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery. Get medical help the same day, and go to an emergency department if you feel very unwell. A joint infection needs treatment quickly. If you have a very high or very low temperature, shivering you cannot control, you are breathing very fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused or your speech is slurred, your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), or you have a rash that does not fade when you press it, call emergency services, as this can be sepsis.
- Same day: severe hip pain that came on suddenly without a fall, or pain that is getting worse quickly over a few days. Get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: new hip or groin pain after a fall, even a small one, if you are older, have low bone density (osteoporosis) or have taken steroid tablets for a long time, even if you can still walk. Get medical advice the same day. A broken hip is not always obvious at first.
- Same day: a leg or foot that is getting weaker, for example your foot drags, catches on the ground or slaps down when you walk (foot drop). Get medical advice the same day. If the weakness is getting worse by the hour, go to an emergency department.
- Same day: a calf or thigh that is newly swollen or getting more swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not fit your injury or condition, or that feels different from normal muscle soreness after exercise. This can be a sign of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis), especially after surgery, an injury, time in a cast or boot, a long trip or a spell of being much less mobile than usual. Get medical advice the same day. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
- Same day: a child or teenager has sudden pain in the hip, thigh or knee, is limping, or cannot put weight on one leg. Get an urgent appointment with a doctor the same day. If they have a high temperature or seem very unwell, go to an emergency department. This page is for adults, and hip pain in children has different causes.
- Same day: you have had a hip replacement and your hip clunks and feels as if it partly slipped out of place and went back, even if it settles straight away and your leg looks normal. Stop the exercises, avoid the movement that brought it on, go back to your crutches or frame, and keep away from deep bending, crossing your legs and twisting on that leg until you have been seen. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. If the leg then looks shorter or turned, or you cannot move it or put weight on it, call emergency services.
- Same day: at any time after your operation, even years later, new pain in your new hip along with a high temperature or feeling hot, cold or shivery, or a hip that becomes hot, red or swollen, which counts on its own, with or without pain and with or without a temperature. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. A new joint can become infected long after the operation, and that needs treating quickly. A normal temperature is not an all clear: OrthoInfo says fever is no longer considered a sign of an infection after a joint replacement, that the signs can be as little as mild redness and swelling and sometimes there are none at all, and that increased pain or stiffness in a joint that had been working well is one of them. So do not wait for a temperature before you report new or increasing pain in your new hip to your surgical team.
- Same day: you have had a hip replacement and, after a fall or a knock, even a small one, your hip, groin or thigh is newly painful, bruised or swollen, even if you can still walk and your leg looks normal. Stop the exercises, go back to your crutches or frame and keep your full weight off that leg, and contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. A break in the bone around a new hip is not always obvious at first, and walking normally on one can move the broken ends apart.
- Same day: hip pain at night or at rest that does not ease when you change position, and keeps getting worse. If you are being treated for cancer now, contact your cancer team the same day.
Book an appointment
- Within a day or two: hip pain at night or at rest that does not ease when you change position, and keeps getting worse. If you have had cancer, now or in the past, or are losing weight without trying, see your doctor sooner, within a day or two, and mention it. This applies even if the pain is not getting worse.
- Within a few days: hip pain at night or at rest that does not ease when you change position, and keeps getting worse. See your doctor within a few days.
- Within a few days: new pain in the groin or buttock, and you take steroid tablets long term, or have in the past, or you regularly drink a lot of alcohol. This can be a sign of a problem with the blood supply to the top of the thighbone (avascular necrosis). Book an appointment with your doctor within a few days and mention the steroids or alcohol.
- Within 2 weeks: pain that spreads down the leg below the knee, especially with numbness or tingling in the leg or foot. The pain may be coming from your lower back rather than the hip tendons. Book an appointment with a doctor or physio.
- Within 2 weeks: the pain is mostly in the groin rather than on the outside of the hip, or the hip is stiff and hard to bend, for example when you put on socks. This points more toward the hip joint itself, such as hip osteoarthritis. Book an appointment with a doctor or physio so the cause can be checked.
- Routine: pain in your new hip that had settled and has come back, or pain that is getting worse month by month, for example in the groin or thigh when you first stand up and start to walk. This is not an emergency, but ask your surgical team for a review, as the parts of a new joint can loosen or wear over the years. Get medical advice the same day instead, not a routine appointment, if the hip also becomes hot, red or swollen, or you have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery, or the pain is building week by week rather than month by month. A new joint can become infected years after the operation, and the two can feel similar at first.
Common questions
How should I sit with gluteal tendinopathy?
Hips level with or slightly above your knees, both feet flat on the floor, knees roughly hip width apart, your weight shared evenly between your two sitting bones, nothing crossed and nothing tucked under you. The Cambridge University Hospitals leaflet asks for the hips to be kept higher than the knees, for low chairs to be avoided and for sitting cross-legged to be limited, and suggests a wedge cushion. The 2022 ISHA physiotherapy agreement puts it as avoiding hip adduction when sitting, standing or sleeping, and minimizing anything that increases compressive load through the outside of the hip (Disantis and colleagues, 2023). If you are in the first months after a hip replacement or other hip surgery, your surgical team sets which seats you may use and which positions are allowed, so follow them rather than this page.
Why does crossing my legs hurt my hip?
Because it takes the thigh across the midline of your body and holds it there. That position presses the gluteal tendons against the bony point at the top of the thigh bone, and compression against bone combined with hard pulling is thought to be the combination these tendons cope with worst (Grimaldi and colleagues, 2015). The pain often does not announce itself while you sit; it bites when you stand up. Crossing at the ankles is a smaller version of the same thing and the Cambridge University Hospitals leaflet asks for that to be kept to a minimum too, so the substitute to practice is both feet flat on the floor with the knees apart. After a hip replacement it is a different matter entirely: not crossing your legs is on the restriction list after many hip operations because knee over knee can lever a new hip out of its socket, so follow your surgical team rather than this page.
How long can I sit for?
There is no number that applies to everybody, and nobody has published one for this condition, so treating a figure as a limit would be inventing one. What is reliable is the direction: a hip that is irritable tolerates less, and the aim is to stand up before it complains, not once it has. In practice people find somewhere between a few minutes and an hour, and the useful habit is to attach standing up to something that was going to happen anyway, like the end of an episode, a phone call or the kettle.
What is the best chair or cushion for outer hip pain?
Not a brand, a shape. You want a seat high enough that your hips are not below your knees, firm enough that you do not sink into it, deep enough to support your thighs without pressing behind your knees, and ideally with arms so you can push up without hauling on one hip. A wedge cushion, which slopes down from back to front, does the same job as a higher chair in a chair you cannot change, and the Cambridge University Hospitals leaflet suggests one. This site names no product, no model and no price, because the thing doing the work is the geometry.
How do I sit in a car on a long drive?
Raise the seat if it adjusts, so your hips are not below your knees, and tilt the base so you are not sliding back into a hollow. Sit square, with your weight even, and do not lean on the door or the center console. Then build stops into the drive and get out of the car at each one instead of stretching in the seat. Getting in and out matters as much: sit down on the seat first with both feet outside, then swing both legs round together, and reverse that getting out, so the leg never crosses the body while it is taking your weight. That is also the method the NHS gives after a hip replacement, but a car seat is low and tilted back, so if you are still under hip precautions have your surgical team set the method, say whether the seat needs raising and say whether you should be travelling by car yet.
Is a low sofa bad for hip bursitis?
It is the single worst seat in most houses for this problem. A deep soft sofa drops your hips below your knees, lets the thighs roll inward, and gives you nothing firm to push up from, so the thigh crosses the midline for the whole evening and then again on the way out of it. The Cambridge leaflet names low chairs among the aggravating postures and asks for them to be avoided. A firm cushion or a wedge on the seat, or simply using a dining chair for the evening, fixes it without buying furniture. After a hip replacement a low seat is not something to adapt: low chairs are named on the restriction list after many hip operations, so take the high firm chair and follow your surgical team rather than this page.
Should I sit with my legs apart?
Apart, not together, and comfortably so rather than forced. Knees roughly hip width, feet under your knees, is the target, and the point is only to keep the thighs from drifting across the midline. Nobody is asking you to sit with your knees wide, which is uncomfortable and unnecessary, and the hip does not need the opposite extreme to be out of the compressed position.
References
- Grimaldi A, Mellor R, Hodges P, Bennell K, Wajswelner H, Vicenzino B. Gluteal Tendinopathy: A Review of Mechanisms, Assessment and Management. Sports Medicine. 2015;45(8):1107-1119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-015-0336-5
- Disantis A, Andrade AJ, Baillou A, et al. The 2022 International Society for Hip Preservation (ISHA) physiotherapy agreement on assessment and treatment of greater trochanteric pain syndrome (GTPS): an international consensus statement. Journal of Hip Preservation Surgery. 2023;10(1):48-56. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhps/hnac050
- Mellor R, Bennell K, Grimaldi A, Nicolson P, Kasza J, Hodges P, Wajswelner H, Vicenzino B. Education plus exercise versus corticosteroid injection use versus a wait and see approach on global outcome and pain from gluteal tendinopathy: prospective, single blinded, randomised clinical trial. BMJ. 2018;361:k1662. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k1662
- Mellor R, Grimaldi A, Wajswelner H, Hodges P, Abbott JH, Bennell K, Vicenzino B. Exercise and load modification versus corticosteroid injection versus 'wait and see' for persistent gluteus medius/minimus tendinopathy (the LEAP trial): a protocol for a randomised clinical trial. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2016;17:196. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-016-1043-6
- Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Gluteal tendinopathy. Patient information. Approved 14 January 2025. https://www.cuh.nhs.uk/patient-information/gluteal-tendinopathy/
- Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust. Greater trochanteric pain syndrome. Patient leaflet. Last updated 9 December 2024. https://www.kingstonandrichmond.nhs.uk/patients-and-families/patient-leaflets/greater-trochanteric-pain-syndrome
- NHS. Hip pain in adults. Page last reviewed 20 November 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/symptoms/hip-pain/
- NHS. Recovering from a hip replacement. Page last reviewed 6 March 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/hip-replacement/recovering-from-a-hip-replacement/
- NHS. Complications of a hip replacement. Page last reviewed 6 March 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/hip-replacement/complications-of-a-hip-replacement/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Total hip replacement. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/treatment/total-hip-replacement/
- Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Total hip replacement: a guide to your rehabilitation. Patient information. https://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/patients/resources/total-hip-replacement-a-guide-to-your-rehabilitation/
- Anwunah C, Rosenberg S, Hartwell M. Variability in United States online rehabilitation protocols after open and endoscopic hip abductor repair. Archives of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery. 2026;146(1):278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00402-026-06451-9
Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-17.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.