Whenever I go hiking i’ve been getting a pain in my hip joint. Its right in the joint where my leg meets the hip. Very upper inner thigh area. It is worse on up hills. It kinda feels like its the joint itself. I dont get to hike often so I’m hoping its just untrained muscles/tendons and not some joint problem that will keep me from tru-hiking. Any ideas what it is? I dont want to be 30 miles in and find out i have serious problem.
Paul
I get that sometimes and have seen a PT for it. It’s nearly always a combination of overexertion for the capabilities of the surrounding muscles as well as a lack of stretching. I don’t think things like that should ever be pushed too much lest they lead to more serious injury which take a lot longer to recover from.
A good stretch for that is to go down on one knee (the one with the bad hip), hands on hips, lean forward till you start to feel it, hold for 30 secs (this is the warmup), then continue a bit more once you get the release, hold that for 30 (the development phase).
Mark
That is, a physical therapist! My main hiking partner is a PT (lucky me!), and the hip pain you have is pretty common. And yes, stretching is one of the answers to getting rid of it 
What is good is that usually one or two visits is all it takes! You just have to do your stretches 
I used to get them, and Rainrunner forced me to do them. I sometimes still get the pain, when doing high lifts (ie…trails that are built like staircases), so at night, I stretch in my tiny tent, and I am good to go.
And if you can, at least go walking when you can’t go hiking. It helps keep the muscles trained.
sarbar
during my thru in 02, my hips hurt going up hills and my knees hurt going down. The pain would stay pretty constant for about the first 300 miles are so but never really went away the whole trip. But yes, get checked out by all means
virginian