Tight hips.
This is probably the most common issue I see in my clients. (Myself included!) We live in a day in age where we cannot help but many of our activities involve sitting for long periods of time. Not only sitting but almost all activities that are done for an extended period of time always come with compensation patterns.
Unfortunately, this is part of life… Our bodies like to do things via the path of least resistance. And if you have muscles that are weak or not able to fire correctly your body the smart computer that it is, will find a way to help you stay in a position using certain muscle groups that are not ideal. This can go on for years and you won’t notice anything until one day, you might injure yourself.
You can overcome tightness!
But, there are so many things you can do (and easily) to help your body overcome the tightness and weakness! And avoid injury! That is why exercise is so good. You don’t need to do a lot to see these changes either. That is the amazing thing about our bodies; they are so good at adapting to change especially the kind that helps put you into proper postural alignment!
I have created a short two minute video that has 8 exercises (from your toes to your hips) that can help you feel more mobile. You can do these exercises anywhere! All you need is five minutes. Next week I will show you my go to hip strengthening exercises you can do to make sure your body stays in optimal alignment and reduces your risk of injury.
Not only do you need to stretch and strengthen your hips (video on strengthening exercises coming soon) but you need to address your whole body. Everything is connected and if one thing is off that means it is coming from somewhere else that is tight and or weak.
Here is a description of the exercises in the video:
- Toe Stretch – sitting on your knees, make sure you pull your toes back and stretch them as you lean back (You should feel this go down your foot.)
- Ankle Mobility Stretch – Do one ankle at a time. Lean as far forward as possible without your heel coming off the floor.
- 90/90 Hip Stretch – this one has two parts to it. Your want to be sitting on your butt with one leg forward and one behind you. Make sure from your hip, knee and ankle it is a 90 degree angle. Making sure your hips stay square and forward you want to lean forward until you get a deep stretch into your glute. The second part of the stretch is press your back leg into the ground to activate your inner thigh. This is a crucial muscle to fire in order to help with squats, lunges, walking and running to make sure your knee doesn’t feel pain.
- Seated Hip Opener – this is great for your joint capsule. In a seated position, move your knees side to side helps to lubricate the joint.
- Hip Flexor Stretch – My favourite stretch. Make sure you have something for your knee if the ground is too hard for it (a towel is perfect.) Press your knee down into the ground and squeeze your glute while pushing your hip forward. This is great for glute activation and properly engaging your core.
- Hip External Rotation – Turn your foot our 90 degrees from the hip. Start to drive your knee out to the side.
- Kneeling Inner Thigh Stretch – Start on all fours, keep your spine neutral. Extend one leg out to the side. you can either keep your foot on the ground or just your heel, it depends how you feel the stretch. Start to
Try to do a min of 5 repetitions (up to 1o reps) for each exercise. I hope you find the exercises useful! Feel free to comment below or ask any questions! Thank you for watching! Have a happy hip stretching week 🙂
xoxo your trainer,
Emilia
