Shawty Calling On My Hip Flexors
If you’re about to read this email in a sitting position, quickly stand up, shake your body or just do any spontaneous movements for a quick 30 seconds and then come back for the good stuff.
Today I’m going to address a question I get asked all the time….
“How do I improve my tight hip flexors?”
And when people say “improve”, they usually think of themselves as TIGHT and they want tips to reduce the cemented, toffee restriction forcing reluctance into sit-to-stand movements
(that’s right, boring standing is in fact hip extension and requires a balance of strength and mobility between the front and back of the hip).
In search of solutions, off they trot off to yoga to once-and-for-all abolish this limitation in the hopes of regaining the somewhat basic human need, of standing and walking (both require hip extension). It’s here that well-meaning teachers graciously provide them with stretches.
However, our yoga educational system has failed to fully equip our beautiful teachers with the complete picture, because often times a TIGHT muscle is in fact a WEAK muscle, meaning stretching isn’t going to cut the mustard.
Why is Stretching Good But Not Great?
Tight, weak muscles that are stretched (without ever loading the full range) will retire as long, weak muscles.
Passive stretching also doesn’t change much on a neurological level. If the brain’s map of your posture is engraved with an anterior pelvic tilt, but you haven’t asked the brain to rewire this map through full range load, then even after a bunch of stretching the anterior tilt will probably still snugly, settle into place, even though you can now (at last) do the splits.
Without ever loading the muscle there is a risk of over-stretching it. In particular, the most vulnerable parts of the muscle are the tendons, and once these have been intoxicated with over-the-limit flexibility drills, our ligaments take one for the team (which is when we start opening a can of hip impingement worms).
Quick side note: Passive stretching is NOT bad, it’s just that yogis take their stretching as seriously as the peeps in level 3 contortion class, and often do much too fast!!!! What's the solution?
1. Give Them What They Need
To ensure the hip flexors don’t go on strike here are some fun things to help them function optimally (if you want to feel these in a class, join me on Saturday).
a. Scissor legs - a great place to start as you don’t have to go into full ROM straight away, but rather you can build it up gradually. It's also a lot less weight on the HF's when there is only one leg to control. It's also functional, as it mimics walking.
b. Leg raises - A step up from scissor legs, requiring more core control as two legs are somewhat heavier than only one (sorry to state the obvious). This one is lovely to put more demand on the anterior chain.
c. Leg lifts - functional as they take the legs through full ROM against gravity! You can also start with alternating legs. Then graduate these to double bent legs, like the image. And then, when your HF's are badass mojo's, do two legs with straight knees.
2. Strengthen your glutes
In standing, walking, and running we need to go into the hip extension to allow the hip flexors to move through full ROM! If our glutes are weak we will default to an anterior pelvic tilt, the extension will come from our lower back (ouch back pain), and our hip flexors will never go into full ROM.
All hale the GLUTES! Without them, we are stuck in crap posture and most likely live with some sort of pain.
3. Ditch over-stretching
Your hips don’t have a huge amount of active structures covering the anterior portion of the hip. Excessive stretching will eventually weaken the passive structures, of which we have no neurological control. They also tend to have a poor blood supply and therefore if they are compromised they take AGES to heal!
Like I said if this sounds intriguing but you need to feel this for it to make sense, my book, with Adel, has more information!
Sending you love,
Celest