Why do my bones hurt when I run?

Why do my hips hurt during & after running?

• It started out just my right hip hurting, like an ache during running but then it would go away once I had been running a few minutes. This is my first spring track season and have been running regularly for over two months; I've had shin splints basically the whole time and a brief bout with tendonitis in my left foot. In the last couple of days both of my hip bones seem to be hurting when I run and even after, along with pain in both my shins. I ran in a race yesterday, (800 m) and I don't actually run that hard but it hurt beforehand, but I didn't really feel it too badly when I was running. But today when I ran it hurt during & after. I'm seeing a podiatrist, also. Any advice would be great!

• Answer:

  My hips used to hurt so badly I could barely walk, it was ridiculous. I started out waiting a week or 1.5 weeks for me to be able to walk again, then to try and run again only to redo the damage. I do not know if this will work for you, but I slowed it down for a couple months (literally), I started doing cross-training until I could walk again, and maintained at least half of my cardio being cross-training (elliptical) for a month or so after. In the meantime, I started resistance training, and developing muscles, especially using machines that target the hip flexors. I also started doing yoga everyday. I never had the problem again. The way I thought about it (I largely did not consult anybody about how to get over this and just kind of felt around in the dark), I need to strengthen my support system for my knees, and strengthen my hips, glutes, thighs, etc. So I would spend about a half hour after my cardio workout developing and working on these muscles on machines. The other part of this is to consider how your form affects you. As I started running further and further (and I know I have lots more to learn about myself) I would get aches in new places, but I knew my muscles were strong enough, that was not the problem. Everytime something happened I paid attention to how my body would try to compensate to avoid this pain, and I would take the time to recover (cross-training) and the next time I would try it again I would take a keynote by what my body tried to do to avoid the pain I brought on last time to alter my form. I have zero knee, hip, or ankles problems up to this point (in half-marathon shape). You may wish to really examine how you run. I used to look at the mirror in the fitness room of where I work out in winter and really force myself to develop a habit of what I thought was better running form. You can adapt and learn motor competency slowly, most people do not run with awesome form naturally, you have to learn as you go (at least I did). What I remember especially for my hip pain, was that I remember isolating this problem to my foot strikes when running. I was not heel striking, I was flat foot striking, this caused a huge shock absorption straight to my thighs, and after only about a half hour of this (daily) I could not even walk. Maybe check out your foot falls, and see if you can find any clues there.