What is a hip impingement?

Hip impingement is a condition where you don't have a perfectly round ball, and a perfectly congruent socket.  So in patients that have hip impingement, they get pain when the ball of the ball and socket joint rubs up against the corner of the socket.  The best analogy I typically give for patients is, think about a door running into a hinge snapping back.  So it's where your hip joint isn't perfectly congruent such that you are predisposed to your -- to the ball of the ball and socket joint going up against the socket in an irregular way.  Oftentimes this can cause pain and can limit activities that require you to bend or squat and can actually predispose you to arthritis later in life.  Hip impingement is somewhat common.  It’s becoming more frequently diagnosed as we're becoming more sensitive to it as people are becoming more and more active in sports and are active in sports later in life.

And typically patients that have a hip impingement symptoms notice pain only with higher level activities.  And the concerning thing about hip impingement is that it can lead to hip arthritis later in life.