Hip Dips: Why There Is Nothing to Fill, and an 11-Minute Routine
Last updated 10 September 2026 · by Karyna Trygubchak · 8 min read
Short answer
Hip dips are the space between the top of your pelvis and the bony point at the top of your thigh bone. They are architecture, not fat, and no routine fills them in. What movement can change is the muscle that spans that space and how level your pelvis stays when you walk.
What a hip dip actually is
Run your fingers down the outside of your hip. Near the top you feel a wide rim of bone — the upper edge of the pelvis. A few centimetres lower, on the side of your thigh, you feel a second hard point sticking out. That is the greater trochanter, the knob at the top of the thigh bone where several muscles attach. Between those two hard points the surface steps inward. That step is the dip.
Cleveland Clinic describes the shape in almost the same terms: the thigh bone is not a straight rod but bends like a number seven, and how visible the indentation is depends on hip width, the length of the femoral neck and the size of the greater trochanter. Exercise physiologist Katie Lawton, MEd, is direct about it: “It’s about how your femur is allocated and how your pelvis develops over time.”
Why it is not fat, and why lean women have them too
If a dip were a shortage of soft tissue, it would disappear as soft tissue is added, and deepen as it is lost. Very lean women see the dip clearly because there is less over the bone. Softer bodies often see it too, because the same recess is still there underneath.
Lawton says it plainly: “We can’t do anything to correct something that’s anatomical, and hip dips are purely anatomical.” Almost everyone with typical anatomy has them; what differs is how pronounced the space is.
So the honest starting point is a subtraction. There is nothing in the dip to remove. There is something across it to use.
A facade with two columns
Picture the front of an old building with two stone columns standing proud of the wall. Between them the wall is set back. Nobody calls that recess damage, and no amount of plaster turns a recess into a column.
Now stretch an awning across between the two columns. When the awning hangs slack, the eye drops into the recess and the whole facade reads as tired. Pull it taut and the eye travels along one continuous line instead. The recess is still there, measured with a ruler. It reads completely differently.
Your pelvis is the wall. The rim above and the trochanter below are the columns. The awning is a group of muscles most women have never trained on purpose.
What crosses the space
Three muscles run from the side of the pelvis down onto the top of the thigh bone: gluteus medius, gluteus minimus and tensor fascia lata. Cleveland Clinic calls them the hip abductors and describes them as a set of muscles near the hips that help you walk and keep your balance. Two of them attach exactly where the dip is — they start on the pelvis and end on the top of the thigh bone, crossing the recess on their way.
These are the only tissues in the region whose volume and tone you can genuinely influence. Not the bone spacing. Not the width of the pelvis. The awning.
Why your walk matters more than your workout
Cleveland Clinic puts it simply: when you lift your left foot off the ground, the abductors near your right hip pull on your pelvis to keep it from dipping to the left. Every single step is a moment of standing on one leg, and every single step asks that group to hold the pelvis level.
When they are not doing their job, the pelvis drops toward the swinging leg with each step — the pattern physiotherapists call a Trendelenburg gait. The body compensates by leaning the upper body the other way, by gripping the outer thigh and the band down the side of the leg, and by letting the trochanter push further out sideways. The recess above it looks deeper as a result, not because anything melted away, but because the post underneath it moved outward.
A 30-second self-test
Stand in a doorway, hands resting lightly on the frame. Put your fingertips on the top rim of each hip bone so you can see whether they sit level. Now lift one foot a few centimetres off the floor and hold for five seconds.
Watch the hip of the lifted leg. If that side of the pelvis sinks, or your upper body tips toward the standing leg to keep you upright, the abductors on the standing side are not holding the line. Repeat on the other leg — most women find one side clearly quieter than the other.
An 11-minute routine
Barefoot, no equipment. Everything is slow.
- Half-kneeling front-of-hip lengthening (2 min). One knee down, the other foot forward. Tuck the tailbone slightly under and breathe into the back of the ribs. Two long breaths, then swap. Short hip flexors keep the pelvis tipped forward and the side muscles switched off.
- Side-lying abduction (2 min). On your side, bottom knee bent, top leg long and taken a hand’s width behind the line of your body. Lift about 20 centimetres, pause, lower slowly. Ten each side.
- Clamshell with quiet ribs (1.5 min). Knees bent, heels together, hand on the lower ribs. Open the top knee only as far as the pelvis stays still. Twelve each side.
- Bridge with the knees pressing outward (1.5 min). On your back, feet flat, press the knees gently apart as you lift the hips. Hold three breaths, lower. Six repeats.
- Standing hip hike (1.5 min). Stand with one foot on a step or a thick book, the other hanging free. Let the free hip drop a little, then draw it up using the standing hip. Eight each side.
- Slow lateral steps (1.5 min). Knees soft, step wide to the side and land with the whole foot, then bring the other foot halfway in. Six steps each direction, unhurried.
- Single-leg stand with breathing (1 min). Stand on one leg, fingertips on the pelvis, and take three slow breaths while keeping the rims level. Swap.
Three layers, three different clocks
| Layer | What changes it | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Fluid and tissue glide around the hip | Movement, breathing, walking | Same session |
| Abductor tone and pelvic control in walking | Daily practice | 4–12 weeks |
| Bone spacing: pelvis width, femoral neck, trochanter | Nothing you can do at home | Never |
Most disappointment with hip routines comes from judging the second row by the third. The second row is genuinely trainable at any age.
Sources
Cleveland Clinic, Hip Dips: What They Are and Can You Get Rid of Them (Katie Lawton, MEd, exercise physiologist). Cleveland Clinic, Hip Abductor Muscles: What They Are, Anatomy & Function.
What results to expect
In the first sessions the outer hip usually feels warmer and easier to find, and standing on one leg feels steadier. Over four to twelve weeks of daily practice many women notice a fuller, more even line along the upper outer hip and less gripping in the outer thigh by evening. The measurable width of the recess does not change, because bones do not.
Common mistakes
- Chasing the dip itself. Squeezing, massaging or cupping a space between two bones has nothing to work on.
- Letting the leg drift forward. The moment the working leg moves in front of you, the front of the outer thigh takes over and the back edge of the hip stays asleep.
- Standing all day on one hip. The habitual hip-out stance while waiting or cooking parks the pelvis in a dropped position for hours and undoes the ten minutes you just did.
Who should be careful
Pain on the outer point of the hip that wakes you at night, or that makes lying on that side impossible, is worth a proper look rather than more side-lying work — tendon and bursa problems in that exact spot are common and they respond to a different plan. The same goes for hip pain that pinches in the groin, numbness or pins and needles down the leg, a limp that appeared suddenly, and any hip that has had surgery or a replacement. If you are pregnant or recently postpartum, keep the range small and stop at any pulling in the pubic joint. Go to a doctor or a physiotherapist, not to a routine.
How I built this into my programs
I never build a hip block around the outer thigh on its own, because the side of the pelvis only works when the foot below it and the ribs above it are doing their part. In Marathon 4.0 Pro the whole chain is trained in order — feet, pelvis, breathing, shoulders — so the abductors are asked to work in walking, not only lying on the floor. Marathon 3 goes deeper on hips and glutes, and Lympho is where I put the fluid work when the whole lower body feels heavy by evening. If the outer thigh is your main concern, my earlier piece on hip dips versus saddlebags sorts out which of the two you are actually looking at, and the inner thigh routine covers the other side of the same joint.
FAQ
Are hip dips genetic?
They follow from skeletal proportions — the width of the pelvis, the length of the femoral neck, the size of the greater trochanter — and those are largely inherited and finished developing by adulthood.
Can exercise get rid of hip dips?
No routine removes a space between two bones. What daily practice can do is build the muscle that crosses that space and keep the pelvis level as you walk, which changes how the whole hip line reads.
Do squats and lunges help?
They build the big muscle at the back of the hip, which is useful, but they ask very little of the smaller group on the side. Side-lying and single-leg work is what reaches the abductors, and it needs slow tempo rather than heavy load.
What about shapewear or fillers?
Shapewear redistributes soft tissue while you wear it and does nothing after. Injectable volume in that area is a medical conversation with a doctor, with its own risks and costs. Neither one does what practice does, and practice does not do what they do.
This article is educational and is not medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose any condition or to replace professional care. Individual results vary; if you have pain, a diagnosed hip condition, or you are pregnant or postpartum, speak with your doctor or physiotherapist before starting.