hip
Training around hip pain
A hip flag is the widest cut RepRoute makes to a lower body. It removes 282 of the 302 squat, lunge, hip-hinge and carry movements from your plan and rebuilds the emptied days from your upper body and core.
Deep squats, deficit pulls and long-stride split squats are the movements a cranky hip usually objects to first.
The hip tag reaches four patterns — squat, lunge, hip-hinge and carry — and flagging it REMOVES 282 of the 302 movements in them, 93% of your loaded lower-body work. Catalogue-wide that's 282 exercises: the third-widest flag overall, behind a shoulder flag's 375, but by far the biggest hit a lower body can take.
Twenty lower-body movements survive it, and the set is less predictable than you'd hope because the catalogue is tagged per exercise: Back Squat, Barbell Deadlift, Barbell Farmers Walk, Bodyweight Squat, Bulgarian Split Squat, Chair Squat, Dumbbell Farmers Walk, Dumbbell Lunge, Dumbbell RDL, Farmer's Walk, Front Squat, Glute Bridge, Goblet Squat, Kettlebell Deadlift, Pistol Squat, Reverse Lunge, Trap Bar Deadlift, Walking Lunge, Wall Squat and Weighted Lunge. Some of those are heavy barbell lifts, so read the list as "not tagged for the hip" rather than "gentle on a hip" — if a back squat is what hurts, swap it out yourself.
Days left empty are refilled with up to three exercises from what remains — presses, rows and core work. Be honest with yourself about what that means: for a few weeks, your training will be upper-body-led.
RepRoute does not cap squat depth, shorten your range of motion, or lighten the bar before removing a movement — there is no such path in the engine. And your training volume does not survive this untouched: a refilled day tops out at three exercises, and the patterns it reaches for may have nothing to do with the day's original theme. A hip flag costs you real work, and you should decide to take it knowing that.
What the flag removes from your plan
282 of the 302 movements in these patterns carry the hip tag and are removed. Tagging is per exercise, not per pattern, so 20 survive — they are named below.
- ×Squatting
- ×Lunging / split squat
- ×Hip-hinging (deadlift)
- ×Loaded carries
What survives the flag
These 20 carry no hip tag, so the flag leaves them in your plan. Not tagged is not the same as cleared for your injury — if one of them hurts, use Swap on it or skip the set.
Back SquatBarbell DeadliftBarbell Farmers WalkBodyweight SquatBulgarian Split SquatChair SquatDumbbell Farmers WalkDumbbell LungeDumbbell RDLFarmer's WalkFront SquatGlute BridgeGoblet SquatKettlebell DeadliftPistol SquatReverse LungeTrap Bar DeadliftWalking LungeWall SquatWeighted Lunge
What RepRoute can still program
These carry no hip tag — verified against the live catalogue, not picked by hand — so they survive the strip and are what emptied days get refilled from. They are not one-for-one replacements — the engine removes and rebuilds, it does not substitute like for like.
Dumbbell Bench Press
chest
Inverted Row
middle back
Dumbbell Shoulder Press
shoulders
Plank
abdominals
Common questions
No. A day the strip empties is refilled up to three exercises — which may be fewer than it held before, and in different patterns. If a hip flag is going to gut your week, we'd rather you knew that going in than discovered it on the dashboard.
Not much, with the flag on — squat, lunge and hinge is essentially all of loaded leg training, and the hip tag covers 93% of it. Twenty movements slip through, but several of them are heavy barbell lifts you may not want on an angry hip. If only some hip positions hurt, you'll get far more out of leaving the flag off and using Swap on the movements that actually aggravate it.
A painless click is generally not a training-load question. A click with pain or instability is a clinician question, not one for a planning app.
See it in action
Free plan, no credit card. Flag the hip in onboarding and the conflicting movements are stripped from your plan straight away.