Hip Hypertrophy?

I recently tried on a couple of shorts that I’d stowed away over the winter, and had some difficulty fitting them on. My waist has grown slightly, because my fiance went through a really rough period over the winter (don’t ask) and the only therapy she would try was regular visits to the local chinese buffet, as well as nightly viewings of rental movies with snacks and desserts. However, while I can barely close the buttons on them around my waist, I can’t even attempt to close them around my hips. Not the thighs, which are and always have been massively muscled, but the hip joint where underwear elastic tends to settle when you don’t have a properly flattened stomach. I have been focusing on maximal strength over the winter (endurance/cardio was mostly limited to snow shovelling at high speed), but do not know if the hip joint itself can hypertrophy the way the fleshy thigh and core muscles above and below it can. Is this extra girth at the hips hypertrophy, or will it disappear when I remove this winter flab?

(Incidentally, she’s doing much better, and has acknowledged that if she wants to keep me, she’s going to have to start honoring promises. Including ones about exercising with me for my sake as well as hers. I need my training partner…)

Dude, this is one weird post! I don’t know what you mean about the whole elastic on your underwear thing, but to answer you question the hip JOINT does not atrophy but all the associated muscles certainly can and do.

BTW, thinking of your “massively muscled” thighs has got me all hot!