Just lie down and relax, there is no such thing as fake wide hips!

Audit expert: Shen Yingjian

Director of the Nutrition Department of Hebei Yanda Hospital

Which of the following three types of body types, "fake wide hips", "butterfly wings" or "comic legs", hits your body pain point? With the constant onslaught of "body anxiety" and fitness craze, it seems that there is no body defect that cannot be "solved".

For example, narrow hips are more popular in East Asian aesthetics, and many fitness bloggers will give advice, claiming that as long as you are diligent, there is nothing that cannot be trained away from wide false hips. But can "false hips" really be made narrower through exercise?

Tutorial on reducing fake hips Source | Xiaohongshu

In fact, the false hip is not the hip, but the "greater trochanter", which is the bone of the femur. Since it is a bone, it is impossible to train it to be smaller. It can only be made "large" and uniform - fill the surrounding concave with muscle. From a scientific point of view - false wide hips do not exist at all.

1. Real hip width VS fake hip width

In the medical field, there is no such concept as "false wide hips" . The saying about "false wide hips" on the Internet has no correct theoretical basis to support it, which is mainly reflected in two aspects.

First, those who promote "false wide hips" believe that the widest part of the human body should be above the pelvis, which makes the body lines appear smooth. However, if the widest part is at the thigh root below the pelvis, the legs will appear short, and this is "false wide hips."

This statement is completely wrong, because from the perspective of normal human body structure, the widest part of the body is the thigh root!

Hip diagram

Source: Baidu Encyclopedia

The structure of the human pelvis is relatively complex, including the iliac crest, greater trochanter of the femur, gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, ligaments, muscles, etc.

The maximum width above the pelvis is the distance between the widest outer edges of the iliac crest, which is generally 25 to 28 cm. The maximum width below the pelvis is the distance between the left and right greater trochanters of the femur at the root of the thigh, which is generally 28 to 31 cm.

Iliac crest and greater trochanter position

Source: Baidu Encyclopedia

It can be seen from this that in a normal human body, the maximum width at the thigh root is slightly larger than the maximum width above the pelvis .

The second point is about the false hip width. Some people promote "femoral internal rotation" which causes the greater trochanter of the femur to protrude significantly, causing a false hip.

First, combined with the human body structure characteristics mentioned in the first point, the greater trochanter of the femur itself is bulging. Second, there is indeed a certain angle between the femoral neck (solid blue line) and the coronal plane of the femoral shaft (dashed line) on both sides of the human body, which can rotate within a certain range, but this angle is very small, between 10° and 20° for adults.

Normal rotation of the femur

Source: Measurement and mechanical analysis of femoral neck torsion angle and neck-shaft angle, Xiao Gang, Journal of Qingyuan Vocational and Technical College, 2020

When rotating normally within this range, the corresponding outer edge protrudes very little. Unless the internal rotation angle is less than 10° or the external rotation angle exceeds 20°, the outer edge of the femur will protrude significantly, but at this time the hip joint is already in an abnormal state of backward or forward tilt, which will lead to abnormal posture and gait in the long run.

Different rotations of the femur

Source: Measurement and mechanical analysis of femoral neck torsion angle and neck-shaft angle, Xiao Gang, Journal of Qingyuan Vocational and Technical College, 2020

More importantly, the part that is most affected by the forward and backward tilt of the hip joint is not the hip, but the knee joint . Because the hip joint is in an incorrect position and the force is unreasonable, the pressure on the knee joint will increase, increasing its wear burden.

Seeing this, some people may wonder, if there is no false hip width, why are there concave sides of the buttocks? What measures can be taken to improve it?

2 Causes and improvement measures for the depression on both sides of the buttocks

As we mentioned above, the iliac crests above the pelvis are widely spaced and convex, while the greater trochanters of the femurs below the pelvis are even larger. Therefore, if there is not enough muscle and fat filling between the iliac crest and the greater trochanter, this position will inevitably be concave.

Some people have smaller pelvis and femurs, which are closer together, and they have more fat and muscle, so the buttocks are smaller and appear fuller; some people have larger pelvis and femurs, which are farther apart, and they have less fat and muscle, so the buttocks are more obviously sunken.

In other words, it is normal to have concavities on both sides of the buttocks, and the degree of the concavity is related to the shape and size of each person's pelvis and femur, as well as the amount of muscle and fat.

Female athletes have well-developed muscles, but there are still depressions on both sides of their buttocks

Source: Observer.com

The depressions on both sides of the buttocks are a normal phenomenon determined by human genes. Genes cannot be changed, so the depressions cannot be completely eliminated . However, we can still take some measures to make the depressions smoother, such as increasing the muscle mass in the buttocks and reducing the fat on the outer sides of the thighs .

If you want to exercise the gluteus maximus muscles in your buttocks, you can choose exercises such as hip bridges and squats. When doing squats, be careful not to let your knees go beyond your toes and your hips go below the level of your knees, otherwise you are not exercising your buttocks, but your legs.

Squat

Source: pixabay

If you want to exercise the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus muscles, you can choose exercises such as clam opening and closing and outer leg raising. Please note that when doing clam opening and closing, you must keep the pelvis stable. The wider the leg opening is not necessarily better. You only need to feel tension in the buttocks muscles.

In general, whether it is a sunken buttocks or a thick "wide hips", it is a normal phenomenon and there is no need to worry about it . Whether the hips are big or small, as long as they are healthy, they are "good hips". Maintaining healthy exercise in daily life, especially paying attention to doing each posture correctly and accurately, can better improve the body curve.

Finally, if you experience any discomfort, pain, or obvious deformities in your bones or joints, do not search for exercise videos to correct them on your own. It is recommended that you go to the hospital for examination and treatment by a professional doctor.