Strong and flexible hip muscles help provide stability in your movement and avoid injuries. Many people have hip problems as a result of excessive sitting and inadequate exercise. In order to avoid such problems, we have jotted down some mobility exercises for your hips that will help make your hips stronger and more flexible.
Hip mobility refers to the range of motion of more than 15 muscles in your hip area.
Importance of Hip Mobility:
Our hips provide a stable base for the spine to keep the body in an upright position, but also provides enough movement to allow our lower limbs to move around the spine. With poor hip mobility can come poor movement, poor posture and inhibited muscles - all of which can lead to injury and distress. Staying loose can help to improve your stability, flexibility and strength. As a bonus, this will help you power through athletic performances.
How to check if you have bad hip mobility?
There are various tests that can be done along with various self-assessment tests. Apart from that, there are a few signs which may have a relation with tight hip flexors. They are:
- Tightness or an ache in your lower back, especially when standing,
- Poor posture and difficulty standing up straight,
- Neck tightness and pain,
- Pain in the glutes, etc.
Here are a few hip mobility exercises that you can do:
1. Lying Hip Rotations
This exercise starts the sequence as an easy first movement to warm-up and build toward the rest of the series.
Steps to perform:
Lie on your back with both knees bent, cross one ankle over the opposite knee, move in and out of the stretch by rotating the hip in and out for the hold, use your hand for assistance to press into the knee.
2. Piriformis Stretch
This stretch targets the piriformis, which is a small muscle located deep in the buttock. This muscle tends to get pretty tight from sitting all day.
Steps to perform:
Cross one leg fully over the opposite leg, so your knee is crossed over your thigh, pull the crossed knee toward your opposite shoulder, stretching the piriformis muscle.
3. Butterfly Stretch
This classic stretch is very useful for the groin muscles, and for improving hip rotation to the side. Pay close attention to your back and keep it straight and upright as you move through the stretch.
Steps to perform:
Sit up with your feet together, moving the knees down toward the ground. Use your hand to press into the ground and move your groin closer to your Heels.
4. Frog Stretch
At this point in the sequence, we are ready for a bit more intensive stretching for the hips, adding some more weight bearing into the exercise. Again, take it slow and easy and don’t force a range of motion you may not be ready to achieve. The action here as you move in and out of a
stretch is squeezing the knees together as you rock backward and relaxing as you rock forward. After a few repetitions you can sit back and relax into the stretch for upwards of a minute.
Steps to perform:
Start on hands and knees, bringing your knees as far apart as is comfortable, rock back and forth in that position and keep the balls of your feet on the ground, with toes pointed outward.
5. Kneeling Lunge
This exercise is somewhat deceptive in terms of how it can affect your hips. You may need some trial and error to find the best front foot positioning, which happens when your shin is upright when you lean forward, rather than being angled down or back. Keep your hips square and your upper body tall, and you’ll be in the right position. Don’t be afraid to adjust the back leg positioning to get the most out of the stretch to release your hip flexors.
Steps to perform:
Get into a lunge position, with knee and foot about hip width apart from the elevated leg, keep the chest tall and the hips square, to make the stretch harder, you can pull the back knee up off the ground.
6. Squatting Internal Rotations
This is another dynamic movement like the flying butterfly, which I’ve put toward the end to encourage blood flow and circulation after all the previous stretches. Don’t hold the end position very long at all. Just keep moving and give yourself some time to work through the movement.
Steps to perform:
Start in a deep squat position (as deep as you can go), rotate one knee inward, down toward the ground. This stretch can be done sitting on a small stool if you cannot get into a comfortable squat position.
7. Pigeon Stretch
The pigeon stretch is another classic stretch that can help you work on, not just your hip mobility, but also your hamstring and spine flexibility.
Steps to perform:
Start with your front knee bent to a 90-degree angle, the back knee can be as bent or extended as is comfortable for you, rotate the back hip toward the front heel, and then toward the back foot, keep the chest up tall, and only bear as much weight as you can comfortably. If you feel comfortable with the knee bent, you can work on straightening out the back leg into the full pigeon pose.
Do about 5-10 repetitions for each exercise and hold the form for about 10-30 secs. Do this every day and you will eventually see improvements in your hip mobility.
Best time to practice:
This routine makes for a good warm-up or cool down for your other training, but it can really be practiced at any time. Some people enjoy doing this routine when they first wake up or just before going to sleep to get a nice stretch in. You can do this routine whenever it works best for you.
The best times to work on hip mobility: In the morning to get your day started as a part of your regular training – doesn’t matter if it’s before or after, just fit it in wherever it feels best for you.
How about pairing your hip mobility exercises with some fun strength training workouts?
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