Questions to ask yourself:

1) Are you losing range of motion and control?

2) Is pain becoming nagging?

3) Are you feeling "loose" and unstable?

If any of the above are true, then you should focus more on strength and control instead of relaxation of those muscles. The contract/relax instructions will be very important for you. We have seen many people feel more pain because they have no strength in their hip muscles. Tissue work can aggravate the situation.

Example 1: you foam roll the front of your thigh (quads). You feel like you have worse range of motion and the pain becomes nagging.

In that case, we would suggest NOT foam rolling there anymore. Work instead on building strength in those muscles using exercises from the hip flexor strengthening routine, split squats, or squats.

Example 2: if tissue work on your hamstrings makes things feel worse, think instead about using some of the hip hinge/romanian deadlift options to strengthen the muscles. Also use contract/relax during hamstring stretching to build strength and control of the hamstring muscles.

See also: When Massage Makes Pain Worse