Your hips do an awful lot of work all day, supporting your entire body and keeping you in balance while you stand and walk. It’s common to experience tightness in the hips and is usually caused by tension in the hip flexor muscles. Tight hips do put you at risk for muscle pulls and injury, so it’s important to stretch your hips when you begin to feel tightness. Here are some great stretches for hip pain.
Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch
This gentle stretch is helpful to do daily to loosen up your hip flexor muscles. If you have sensitive knees, put a pillow underneath as you’re kneeling.
- Kneel on one leg.
- Put your opposite foot on the floor with that knee at a 90-degree angle
- Drive your hip forward while maintaining a straight frame. Slightly lean your torso forward.
- Hold this position for about 30 seconds.
- Repeat up to 5 times with both legs, and slightly increase the stretch each time.
Pigeon Stretch
The pigeon stretch comes from common yoga practices and is helpful to use daily to improve overall mobility in your hip flexor muscles.
- Start in the tabletop position with your hands and knees on the ground.
- Bring your right knee forward to just behind your right wrist.
- Bring your right ankle in front of your left hip.
- Straighten your left leg behind you and keep your left knee straight, toes pointed and hips square.
- Gently lower your body to the ground.
- Hold this position for up to ten seconds.
- Release by pushing on your hands, lifting your hips, and moving your legs back into the starting tabletop position.
- Repeat on the opposite side.
These two stretches are helpful to do every day to alleviate common hip pain. If your pain increases, or isn’t subsiding, come see the chiropractors at Posture Doc right away.