How to Wrap the Hip Flexor

The hip flexion motion is controlled by three major muscles: the psoas major, illiacus, and rectus femoris. A pull in any of these muscles can make walking and sports painful, and sometimes wrapping the hip can help.
Hip flexor injuries can happen in a variety of ways, including making sharp cuts in sports, sprinting from a stopped position, or a variety of other motions that cause the leg to flex forward very rapidly in an explosive motion.
A hip flexor wrap will provide the muscles with compression and support, two things that will help the injury heal more quickly.

Things You'll Need

• 6-inch wide ACE bandage
• Athletic taining tape (optional)

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Instructions

• 1

  Ask the patient to stand in front of you, facing you with his leg slightly externally rotated. Make sure you know which side is injured, so you wrap the correct hip. If the pain is so severe the patient cannot bear weight on the injured leg, he should place the heel of the foot of the injured leg on a book or a block to slightly elevate it.

• 2

  Place the end of the bandage on the front of the thigh, about 4 inches below the waist. Hold the end of the bandage in place and wrap the bandage around the thigh laterally, bringing it around the back and through the legs back to the starting place. Repeat that wrap pattern to ensure the end of the bandage stays put.

• 3

  Wrap the bandage up at an angle toward the injured hip. Wrap the bandage around the outside of the hip and across the upper glutes, bringing the bandage across the opposite hip bone and down in front of the pubic bone. Slightly angle the bandage downward, aiming for the injured thigh. Cross over the upper part of what you wrapped earlier. Wrap the bandage medially around the thigh, between the legs, and up toward the outside of the injured hip once again.

• 4

  Repeat step 3 until you run out of bandage. Be sure to keep a constant tension on the bandage, not wrapping too tightly, but tight enough to keep the hip in place.

• 5

  Secure the end of the bandage in place with a small piece of training tape, or simply tuck the end of the bandage into the area you already wrapped.