Physiotherapy
Hip Pain Physiotherapy in Singapore
Written by Zita Sham, Fairuuz Saleh and Ching Yee, Principal Physiotherapists at Phoenix Rehab.Clinically reviewed by Louise Yow, Principal Physiotherapist & Director, AHPC A1300363H.Last reviewed 27 September 2026.
A lot of what people call hip pain does not come from the hip joint.
Where you point matters more than how much it hurts. Pain in the groin usually is the joint. Pain on the outside of the hip usually is not. Pain in the buttock is often coming from the back. Three different problems, three different plans, and the wrong one wastes months.
$230 per 45 minute appointment. No referral needed to start.
Point to it. Where exactly?
The groin, or deep in the front
This is the one that is usually the hip joint itself. Often worse putting on socks, getting out of a car, or turning in bed. Hip osteoarthritis and labral problems live here.
The outside, over the bone
Tender to lie on, sore going up stairs, worse after standing on one leg. This is usually the gluteal tendons rather than the joint, and it is treated completely differently. Stretching it often makes it worse.
The buttock, or it runs down the leg
Frequently referred from the lower back rather than coming from the hip. The hip gets treated, the back gets missed, and nothing changes. Worth sorting out before anything else.
If you cannot tell which of those it is, that is normal, and it is the first thing the assessment answers.
What is usually behind it
The common causes, and how they behave
Hip osteoarthritis
Cartilage wear in the joint. Groin pain, stiffness first thing in the morning, and a gradually shrinking range, particularly rotation. Loading and strength work change how a stiff hip functions even when the joint surface does not change.
Gluteal tendinopathy
The tendons on the outside of the hip, overloaded rather than damaged. Painful to lie on that side, painful on stairs. Commonly mislabelled as bursitis and commonly treated with stretches, which compress the tendon and make it worse.
Femoroacetabular impingement and labral tears
Bone shape and soft tissue in the joint catching at the end of range. Typically younger, typically active, typically pain deep in the groin at the bottom of a squat or after sitting. Not every labral tear on a scan is causing symptoms.
Referred from the lumbar spine
A nerve or joint in the lower back producing pain felt in the buttock, hip or thigh. The hip examines normally. This is the group most often treated for the wrong thing for the longest time.
Fracture
After a fall, or occasionally a stress fracture in a runner. Sudden severe pain, an inability to weight bear, or a leg that looks shortened or turned out. This needs a doctor and an X-ray before it needs a physiotherapist.
Send us your scan report or referral letter
We will tell you what it means for your rehabilitation, when therapy should start, and roughly how long it takes. No appointment needed to ask, and no charge for it.
We explain what the report means for your recovery and the likely timeframe. We do not diagnose from documents, which needs an assessment.
Before anything else
Hip pain that is not a physiotherapy problem
- Emergency department now after a fall if you cannot weight bear, or if the leg looks shorter or rotated outwards. Do not try to walk it off.
- A doctor the same day for hip pain with fever, a hot swollen joint, or severe pain that came on at rest with no injury.
- A doctor soon for hip or groin pain with unexplained weight loss, a history of cancer, night pain that is steadily worsening, or pain in a runner that has become worse week on week and now hurts at rest. Bone stress injuries in the hip are missed often and are worth catching early.
- The emergency department now for numbness in the groin or saddle area, or any change in bladder or bowel control, which is a back problem and an urgent one.
How the work is structured
Four stages, and you move up on criteria
You progress when the hip meets the marker for the next stage, not when a number of weeks has passed.
- Calm & Protect. Settling an irritable hip, and taking off the specific loads that are aggravating it. For a gluteal tendon that means changing how you sit and sleep before anything else.
- Move & Mobilize. Range trained back, particularly rotation, which is usually the first thing an arthritic hip loses.
- Rebuild & Strengthen. Glutes, quadriceps and single leg control. Hips are strength problems more often than they are flexibility problems.
- Return & Perform. Stairs without thinking about it, a full walk, the squat, the run.
None of the four is passive.
After hip surgery
Post-surgical hip rehabilitation
Rehabilitation starts when your surgeon clears it, and their protocol takes precedence over anything written here. Bring the operation note to the first appointment.
Total hip replacement
From the early walking stage through to getting back to a full day on your feet. What matters most is regaining a normal walking pattern rather than a limp you keep, because a limp becomes a habit long after the hip could manage without it.
Hip arthroscopy and FAI surgery
A longer and more staged rehabilitation than most people are told to expect, with specific restrictions in the early weeks that vary by surgeon.
Labral repair
Protected early, then graded loading. The timeline depends on what was repaired and whether bone was reshaped at the same time.
If it has stopped moving forward
Treated for months with nothing to show for it
Hips are the area where a stalled recovery most often means the wrong structure was treated. A gluteal tendon stretched for six months gets worse, not better. A back problem treated as a hip problem does not move at all.
The Stalled Recovery Review is three appointments over three weeks with the same therapist. $690.
What it costs
$230 per 45 minute appointment
One therapist, the same one every visit, for the whole 45 minutes.
Nett, no GST. Same price for your first appointment and your last. Most of that 45 minutes is treatment: manual therapy, joint mobilization, soft tissue work and graded loading, with assessment continuing throughout. You do not pay for a consultation and come back another day to be treated.
A hip program is 12 appointments, $2,760 in all, paid as you attend. If you need more, your physiotherapist shows you which stage criteria are still open, and each extra appointment is $230.
Questions we get asked
Should I stretch it?
It depends entirely on which of the three problems you have, which is the honest answer and also the useful one. Stretching helps a stiff arthritic hip. It reliably makes gluteal tendon pain worse, because the stretch compresses the tendon against the bone. Getting this wrong is one of the most common reasons outside hip pain drags on.
My scan says arthritis. Is physiotherapy pointless?
No. Cartilage does not grow back, and that is not what changes. What changes is the strength and control around the joint and how much load it takes through a day, and those move the symptoms considerably. It also matters for surgery: a stronger hip going in tends to have a more straightforward rehabilitation.
Is it my hip or my back?
That is the single most useful question on this page, and it takes about ten minutes to answer in person. Groin pain that worsens with rotation points at the joint. Buttock pain that changes with your back position points at the spine. Plenty of people have both.
Do I need a scan first?
Usually not. Hip scans in people with no pain frequently show labral changes and joint wear, so the scan often confirms something that is not causing the symptoms. Where imaging would change what we do, we say so and refer you to a doctor for it.
Can I keep running or walking?
Usually something, rarely nothing. Complete rest deconditions the muscles holding the hip and makes the return harder. What changes is distance, surface, frequency and what you do alongside it, and that comes out of the first appointment.
Where we are
Clinics across Singapore
ORCHARD
400 Orchard Road #12-12
Orchard Towers, S238875
NS22 Orchard MRT
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Orchard →
WhatsApp 8800 1830TAMPINES
9 Tampines Grande #01-20
Asia Green, S528735
EW2DT32 Tampines MRT
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Tampines →
WhatsApp 8780 9608SERANGOON
265 Serangoon Central Drive #04-269
S550265 · Lift C only
NE12CC13 Serangoon MRT
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Serangoon →
WhatsApp 8892 4121TANJONG PAGAR
10 Anson Road #02-77A
International Plaza, S079903
EW15 Tanjong Pagar MRT
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Tanjong Pagar →
WhatsApp 8227 7074JURONG EAST
2 Venture Drive #02-02
Vision Exchange, S608526
NS1EW24 Jurong East MRT
Opening 20 October 2026
Physiotherapy and hand therapy in Jurong East →
WhatsApp 8242 7340Find out which stage your hip is in
Tell us where you point to when you say hip, and how long it has been there. Those two answers narrow it down more than anything else you could send us.
Hip physiotherapy is available at all clinics. $230 per 45 minute appointment, nett, no GST.
What our patients say
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