Hip dips are a normal part of human anatomy, and no, you can’t fully get rid of them. Everyone with a typical skeleton has some degree of indentation between the hip bone and the upper thigh. The depth and visibility of that indentation varies from person to person, but it’s determined by bone structure, genetics, and how your body distributes fat and muscle. That said, there are ways to reduce how noticeable they are.
Why Hip Dips Exist in the First Place
Hip dips (sometimes called violin hips) are the inward curves that appear on the outer sides of your upper legs, just below the hip bone. They’re not a defect, a sign of being out of shape, or a medical condition. The Cleveland Clinic puts it bluntly: “The dirty little secret about hip dips is that everybody with a typical anatomy has them.”
The indentation sits in the space between two bony landmarks: the top of your pelvis and the bony bump at the top of your thighbone. How wide that gap is, the angle of your pelvis, and the width of your hips are all skeletal features you’re born with. No exercise, diet, or lifestyle change can reshape bone. Some people have a wider gap and more prominent dips. Others have a narrower gap that’s barely visible. Neither version says anything about your fitness level or health.
Can Exercise Make Them Less Visible?
Exercise can change the appearance of hip dips by building muscle in the surrounding area, but it’s unlikely to eliminate them completely. The muscle that matters most here is the one that sits on the outer surface of your hip. Thickening that muscle adds volume in the indentation zone, which can soften the curve visually.
The most effective exercises for activating that muscle, based on EMG studies measuring electrical activity during movement, are side-lying hip abductions (lying on your side and lifting the top leg), single-leg squats, and lateral band walks. Of these, side-lying hip abduction produced the strongest activation with the least interference from surrounding muscles. Building noticeable size in any muscle takes consistent progressive training over months, not weeks, so patience matters here.
One thing exercise absolutely cannot do is burn fat specifically from the hip dip area. A 2021 meta-analysis of 13 studies involving over 1,100 participants confirmed that training a specific body part does not reduce fat in that body part. Your muscles pull energy from fat stores throughout your entire body, not from the nearest fat deposit. So doing hundreds of side leg lifts won’t melt fat from your outer hips any faster than it melts from anywhere else.
How Body Fat Affects the Appearance
Fat distribution plays a role, but it’s unpredictable. Some people naturally store fat around the hips, which can fill in the contour and soften the dip. Others store fat primarily in the thighs, abdomen, or upper body, leaving hip dips visible regardless of their weight. Gaining weight may reduce the appearance of hip dips if your body happens to deposit fat in that area, but for many people, hip dips remain visible at all weights. Losing weight can actually make them more noticeable as subcutaneous fat decreases.
This is why body composition changes through diet and exercise produce such different results for different people. Your fat distribution pattern is largely genetic, and you can’t direct your body to store fat in one place over another.
Cosmetic Procedures That Fill Hip Dips
For people who want a more dramatic change, cosmetic procedures exist. The two main approaches are fat transfer and injectable fillers, and both come with significant trade-offs.
Fat Transfer
Fat transfer (sometimes performed as part of a Brazilian butt lift) involves liposuction from one area of the body and reinjection into the hip dip region. The results can be long-lasting, but a substantial portion of the transferred fat doesn’t survive. Roughly 40 to 50 percent of injected fat cells die and are reabsorbed by the body, so the final result is noticeably less dramatic than what you see immediately after surgery. The surviving fat cells behave like normal fat: they grow and shrink with weight changes. Recovery requires about six weeks of avoiding pressure on the treated area and limiting cardio, with a focus on low-rep weight training for the lower body instead.
Dermal Fillers
Injectable fillers that stimulate collagen production offer a non-surgical alternative. These are typically administered over one or more sessions and can cost anywhere from $3,500 to $10,000 or more per session, depending on how much product is needed. Results generally last one to two years before the body gradually breaks down the filler, meaning ongoing maintenance sessions are required to keep the look.
Neither option is a one-and-done fix, and both carry the usual risks of any cosmetic procedure: infection, asymmetry, and dissatisfaction with results.
What’s Realistic to Expect
If your hip dips are subtle, a focused strength training program targeting the outer hip muscles can meaningfully soften their appearance over several months. If your hip dips are pronounced because of a wider skeletal gap, exercise will help but won’t create a smooth, curved silhouette on its own. Cosmetic procedures can get closer to that result, but they’re expensive, temporary or semi-permanent, and come with recovery time.
The most useful thing to understand is that hip dips are a structural feature, not a flaw. They tell you nothing about your strength, your body fat percentage, or your health. As the Cleveland Clinic notes, “We can’t do anything to correct something that’s anatomical, and hip dips are purely anatomical.” You can influence how visible they are, but the underlying shape is simply how your skeleton is built.