New Study Compares Arthroscopic Surgery for FAI to Conservative Treatment

In a recent study, researchers compared the effectiveness of arthroscopic surgery for FAI versus conservative treatment (non-surgical methods and physical therapy).[1]  The researchers concluded that surgery for FAI was more effective than non-surgical treatment.

Other studies have shown that physical therapy and surgery for FAI are equally disappointing. So like any study, sometimes you have to lift the hood and look at the fine print to see what's really going on. 

An analysis of the data actually shows us that neither FAI treatment was that good.  Arthroscopic surgery for FAI showed weak results. The nonsurgical treatment for FAI showed weak...

Are you considering a hip injection to test for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI)? Has a hip surgeon told you he can use a hip injection to diagnose FAI or a labral tear with certainty? In this article, you'll discover the truth about hip injections for FAI (and related hip joint pathology like labral tears).

Why get a hip injection for FAI?

The current medical approach to the diagnosis of FAI relies on several tests. One test is anesthetic injection into your hip joint.

Hip surgeons believe that if the injection relieves pain, you have a problem inside your hip joint (like a labral tear and/or FAI). Surgeons suggest that a successful injection indicates surgery is likely to be helpful. (source).

In other words, if an...

If you have hip pain, and you've been told you have femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), you may have had a series of movement tests (called "special tests" in medical jargon) done to confirm your diagnosis.

If you have hip pain and are wondering if there are good tests for femoroacetabular impingement that will tell you if you have FAI, you may found a number of common tests that are believed to be reliable.

In either case, this article is going to cover something medical literature on FAI overlooks: the tests for hip pain causes are wildly unreliable.

What are special tests for femoroacetabular impingement?

A special test for FAI is simply a movement that doctors believe demonstrates that hip bone shape is responsible for your...

If you suspect you have hip pain from femoroacetabular impingement, you may be considering a hip injection. 

I've been doing a lot of research on FAI as part of my duties as one of the co-creators of the FAI Fix. In a recent YouTube comment, an orthopedic physician angrily pointed out that hip joint injections supposedly identify whether hip pain is caused by problems IN the hip joint, like FAI. 

I found his comment interesting, so I did more research on hip injections for FAI. I am going to share some of the results of this research here.

Hip injections for FAI - is the pain caused by what's in the joint?

I started going through the available medical literature on femoroacetabular impingement...

Why am I talking about hip injections?

In a previous post, I shared an orthopedic physician's objections to what we've been talking about with FAI, and in a follow up I talked about hip injections and their reliability and usefulness (spoiler: they don't seem reliable or particularly useful). In case you missed the original YouTube comment from the orthopedic physician, here's a relevant snippet:

Since your [sic] so knowledgeable of the hip joint anatomy I hope you would agree that using a [sic] anesthetic agent and steroid agent to inject into the hip joint would sufficiently rule in or rule out the diagnosis of labral pathology or intra-articular pathology. Guess what? We do it all the time. How could it be...

Why are hip labral tears important to talk about?

Hip pain is becoming an extremely common complaint in this age of desk work and constant sitting. It’s also becoming very common for people to get the diagnosis of a hip labral tear. So, what does it mean to tell people they have hip labral tears? In this article, we’re going to look very deeply at the research around hip pain, labral tears, and surgery for labral tears.

Hip labral tears in a training context

We work with a lot of clients with hip issues in our training facility. From the very beginning, we’ve worked very hard to understand the myths and facts around hip pain and hip labral tears and other hip joint pathologies. We always want to make sure...

Do you feel an achy, dull, annoying pain in the side of your hip that’s been there for months or even years? Does it seem to get worse after any type of dynamic physical activity or any prolonged period of sitting?

It’s possible that this discomfort is due to a shortened and dysfunctional tensor fascia latae muscle, or “TFL” for short. I’ve experienced this discomfort myself so I know exactly how much of a pain in the [TFL] it can be!

In this article, we’re going to explain why your tensor fascia lata might be dysfunctional and then present a step-by-step training protocol that can help you reduce your TFL pain.

You'll smile like this too when your TFL feels better.

My TFL Story...