Reliability of the hand-held dynamometer during hip isometric strength testing both with and without a stabilization strap

Decreased hip strength is often present in patients with chronic overuse lower extremity injuries. The hand-held dynamometer (HHD) can be used in a clinical setting to quantify hip strength; however, reliability of the device remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine the interexaminer and intersession reliability of a HHD when measuring isometric hip abduction (HABD) and external rotation (HER) strength, both with and without a fixed strap. The HHD had good to high reliability regardless of examiner, session, or stabilization when measuring HABD (ICC = 0.885–0.977) and HER (ICC = 0.879–0.958) isometric strength. HHD is an appropriate instrument for measuring isometric hip strength.