Hip dips are having a moment. The perfectly normal indentations that sit below your hips on the outer thigh have become the latest body feature to be scrutinised, fixed and agonised over on social media. But what are they? Can you actually get rid of them? And should you even try?
Formally known as the trochanteric depression, hip dips exist in both men and women and are simply the visible result of the space between two bones – part of the pelvis called the iliac crest and a bony bulge on the upper thigh bone called the greater trochanter. How pronounced they look depends on your bone structure, muscle size and how much fat sits in the area. In other words, they are largely the result of genetics.
Research suggests that some people feel hip dips disrupt the natural contours of the body, though what counts as an attractive figure varies widely from person to person.
The exercises most commonly recommended to reduce hip dips target the gluteus medius, the medium-sized buttock muscle that sits directly over the depression. These include side-lying hip abduction, the side-lying hip clam, standing hip abduction with or without resistance, and weight-bearing exercises such as squats, lunges, step exercises and supine bridges.
Because the gluteus medius comprises three groups of fibres, a mix of exercises is likely to work better than sticking to one. But here is the catch: as you build muscle and reduce fat in that area, the underlying bones and muscles can actually become more prominent, making the dip more visible, not less. A layer of connective tissue called the fascia keeps the muscles separate and ensures some depression will always remain where they meet the bone.
There is also a longer-term risk worth knowing about. Overloading the gluteus medius through repetitive exercise is a leading cause of microtrauma to the muscle and its tendons, which can trigger a condition called greater trochanteric pain syndrome. It affects the same area as hip dips, is up to four times more common in women than men, and will affect up to a quarter of the population at some point in their lives.
Symptoms include hip, thigh and buttock pain and tenderness. The body’s repair process involves replacing damaged tendon tissue with a weaker form of collagen, gradually reducing the strength and integrity of the tendons over time.
Cosmetic procedures
For those wanting faster or more dramatic results, cosmetic procedures are an option, though none come without drawbacks. Surgical fat transfer involves taking fat from elsewhere on the body – the thighs or breasts, for example – and injecting it into the hip dip area.
The risks include bruising, infection, fat loss, tissue death and, in rare cases, fat embolism.
A newer and less invasive option is hyaluronic acid injections, which draw water into the tissue and temporarily increase its volume. Because the injections are given in an area with only small blood vessels, the risks are lower. However, the results are not permanent, since the body breaks hyaluronic acid down over time, meaning repeat treatments are needed.
Although hip dips appear in both sexes, it is almost exclusively women who seek to change them, reflecting broader differences in how men and women are socialised to think about the shape of their bodies.
The honest answer is that short of surgery, hip dips cannot be eliminated. They are a feature of your skeleton, and no amount of gym work will move your bones. Exercise can change the shape of the surrounding muscles to some degree, but may do little to the depression itself and carries its own risks if taken too far. For most people, the most straightforward option remains the least fashionable one: leaving them alone.
