“Fix the hip dip in 7 days”, ”Hip dip fix workout”, “How to fix your hip dips”… A simple search of “hip dip fix” rendered all these videos from “exercise gurus” and influencers. One more problem of our body to be worried about, adding to the ever-increasing list of body image anxiety. Hip dip was never a problem, until we made it so.

What is hip dip?

Hip dip, also called violin hip, or 蝴蝶臀, is an indent on the outside of the hip between the top of the pelvic bone (ilium) and the upper thigh area. It is a depression above the gluteus maximus muscle, the largest bulk of the gluteus muscles. It has no effect on the health or functionality of your body. [1]

Figure 1. The anatomy of the hip. Adapted from work done by Beth Ohara under the license of CC BY-SA3.0.

What causes hip dip?

The appearance of the hip dip is completely natural and has the most to do with your genetics, which determines your body shape and bone structure, muscle, and fat deposition. In particular, the following factors contribute to the indent at the outer hip:

• The vertical distance between the top of iliac crest and the acetabulum (hip socket)
• The horizontal distance between the outer edge of the iliac crest and the hip socket
• The length of the femoral neck
• Your muscle mass distribution
• Your fat distribution
• Your pelvic posture

Figure 2. Factors that contribute to the indent at the outer hip. Adapted from artwork by Profession/Dr. Brian Rothbart under the license of CC BY-SA.

A larger vertical distance between the top border of your pelvic bone (iliac crest) and the hip socket makes the depression more prominent. Likewise, a wider iliac crest relative to the position of the hip socket makes it more obvious. A longer and downward angled femoral neck has a similar effect.

Contrary to the common belief, it has nothing to do with your fatness or leanness. Indeed, higher fat deposit in the indent area helps to fill the gap up and reduce the look of hip dip. However, we cannot control where we deposit our fat.

The real hip dip fix

Training gluteus maximus muscles may help to make the area fuller and reduce the look of the gap, but how your muscle fibers grow is genetically dependent and the effect is not guaranteed.

Some fitness trainers pitch the hip dip as a pelvic posture problem. While it is true that posterior pelvic tilt (rotate the pelvis backward) amplifies the muscle gap and anterior pelvic tilt (rotation the pelvis forward and down) reduces it, this is not the cause for many people as they do not display a posterior pelvic tilt posture. Chasing the elimination of hip dip by forcing yourself into extreme forward pelvic tilt is a terrible idea. Changing the pelvic posture, in particular, putting yourself into an extreme forward pelvic tilt can alter the joint posture at the hip joint, the lumbar spine, the chest, the knees and even the ankles, which can cause muscle imbalance and long-term musculoskeletal issues.

Figure 3. Anterior (forward) and posterior (backward) pelvic tilt. [2]

The real fix is to change your mindset, shift away from focusing on the sheer appearance of certain body parts based on some unreasonable ideology propagated by social media. Focus on training your hips to function as one link of your entire body. Mobilize your hip joint in full range of motions where they are designed to move, train your hip strength to accelerate to power your locomotion, decelerate to land safely from height, stabilize to reduce wear and tear, carry loads properly to protect other joints, etc.

The real problem

The real problem is not hip dip, but a condition called “body dysmorphic disorder” [3]. It is a mental condition in which one has a distorted perception of one’s body shape and size. This is very common in the general population, and it belongs to a broader condition of body image distortion. Under such condition, one cannot stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in their appearance, often a flaw that appears minor or not very noticeable to others. The dissatisfaction of one’s own body can further affect their self-perception of identity and result in the engagement of unhealthy behaviors.

Your body is not flawed because you have a hip dip. You do not need to conform to a narrow and irrational perspective of social norms defining what is a good look and what is not. You can spend all your time and energy fighting the look of hip dip, or you can focus on what really matters –––– your health, fitness, mental wellness, and the overall wellbeing.

As eloquently put by Cassey of Blogilates, “Hip dips do not make you a good person, a bad person, a skinny person, or a fat person.”[4]

REFERENCES

[1] “Hip Dips Are Totally Normal, So Focus on These Exercises Instead”. Healthline

[2] ACE personal trainer manual, 5^th ed, 2014, American Council on Exercise

[3] Hosseini SA, Padhy RK. Body Image Distortion. [Updated 2023 Feb 12]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2023 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546582/

[4] Cassey, “Do you have a hip dip?” Blogilates, 2017

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