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Lying on your side at 11pm, shuffling around trying to find a position that does not ache. Wincing on the first few steps after getting up from your desk. A deep, nagging ache on stairs, or climbing out of the car after a long drive. If any of this sounds familiar, and you are looking for guidance on greater trochanteric pain syndrome Brisbane residents trust, the outside of your hip is telling you something. This pattern is commonly labelled “hip bursitis,” but in most cases what is actually going on is a condition called greater trochanteric pain syndrome, or GTPS.
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Published Oct 26, 2026
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If you are looking for effective treatment for greater trochanteric pain syndrome Brisbane residents trust, it helps to understand what is happening inside the joint. The greater trochanter is the bony bump you can feel on the outside of your hip. A group of tendons, mainly from the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus muscles, attach here and work hard every time you walk, climb stairs, or stand on one leg. Sitting between the tendons and the bone is a small fluid-filled sac called a bursa, whose job is to reduce friction.
For years, pain in this area was simply called “trochanteric bursitis,” with the bursa blamed as the source of the problem. Clinical understanding has moved on. In most people with ongoing outer hip pain, the tendons themselves, not the bursa, are the primary driver, through a process called tendinopathy. The bursa can still be irritated alongside it, but treating it as the main culprit (with rest and injections alone) is exactly why so many cases of outer hip pain drag on far longer than they need to.
What aggravates these tendons is largely about compression. Any position that pulls the leg in across the body, crossing your legs while sitting, lying on your side without support, standing with your weight shifted onto one hip, or stretching the outer hip and glutes, compresses the tendons against the bone underneath. Done occasionally, that is fine. Done for hours a day, every day, it keeps the irritated tendon from settling.
Outer hip pain like this tends to build from a combination of the following.
Senior Physiotherapist Katie Muscat sees this presentation regularly, often in patients who have already been told to simply rest and wait it out. Katie completed her Bachelor of Physiotherapy with First Class Honours at the University of Queensland, and has a particular interest in women’s health and female athlete rehabilitation, an area that overlaps closely with GTPS given how often it shows up around hormonal changes. She also brings her own background as a competitive athlete across soccer, touch football, and rugby 7s, giving her a firsthand understanding of what it takes to stay active through an injury rather than simply stopping.
“The first thing I look at with outer hip pain is what someone is doing all day without realising it,” Katie explains. “Crossing your legs at a desk, sleeping on your side without support, standing with your weight parked on one hip: these compress the tendon over and over, and no amount of treatment in the clinic outweighs hours of that every single day. Once we remove the trigger, we can start loading the hip properly again, beginning with gentle, well-tolerated holds and building toward real functional strength.”
Pain: we start by calming the irritated tendon down, adjusting the positions and habits that are compressing it, alongside hands-on treatment to settle symptoms.
Prevention: once the irritation has settled, we rebuild the strength and control of the hip abductors progressively, from simple isometric holds through to the kind of functional strength that protects against this flaring up again.
Performance: from there, we guide a graded return to walking, running, or whatever activity matters to you, at a pace your hip can actually tolerate, so you get back to it properly rather than risking a setback.
You can see our team directly for outer hip pain, no GP referral required. We will work out whether you are dealing with gluteal tendinopathy, true bursitis, a referral pattern from your lower back, or some combination of the three, and build a treatment plan around what your hip actually needs rather than a generic rest-and-wait approach.
Do not let outer hip pain quietly shrink your world, your sleep, your walks, your stairs. Make an appointment with our team today, and let’s get you back to experiences you never felt possible.
While GTPS was historically referred to as “hip bursitis,” modern clinical research shows that the primary cause is usually tendinopathy of the gluteal tendons (gluteus medius and minimus). The bursa can become irritated secondarily, but treating the underlying tendons with targeted strength and load management is key to long-term recovery.
Lying on your side compresses the gluteal tendons against the bony bump of your hip (the greater trochanter). Sleeping on the affected side puts direct pressure on the tendons, while sleeping on the opposite side can stretch and compress them if your top leg drops across your body. Placing a supportive pillow between your knees helps keep your spine and hips aligned to relieve night pain.
GTPS is significantly more common in women, particularly between the ages of 40 and 60. This is largely due to anatomical factors, such as a wider pelvis, as well as hormonal fluctuations surrounding perimenopause and menopause that can temporarily affect tendon health and resilience.
In most cases, no. Aggressive stretching of the outer hip or foam rolling directly over the bony part of the hip increases compressive force on the irritated tendons, often aggravating symptoms further. Instead of stretching, gentle isometric exercises and adjusting compressive habits are much more effective during early recovery.
No GP referral is required. You can book an appointment directly with Katie Muscat or any of our experienced physiotherapists at PEAK. If you have private health insurance, you can also claim your physiotherapy rebate on the spot.
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