If you’ve been religiously stretching your hip-flexor muscles for a while with no consistent results, now might be as good time as ever to take a different (and wider) perspective.
Traditionally, most individual muscle stretching protocols follow a somewhat mechanical and simplistic view of human function – if this muscle (in our case hip-flexor, or scholarly speaking, iliopsoas) feels tight, all we need to do is stretch it, right?
Not so fast, Sparky! Mathematically speaking (Gosh, do I ever miss my university days – high math and nuclear physics were straight forward and unambiguous!), human body, and human being as a whole, is a problem with multiple variables. Here is an incomplete list of usual and not so usual suspects that can contribute to crabby and/or tight hip-flexors:
~ your mood ( yup, you heard me – it’s true: iliopsoas is one of the most mood-sensitive muscles in your body)
~your activities – well, dah!
~what you do for work
~poor standing/ walking/ sitting
~ kidney and bladder issues
~ any type of gut problem
~ issues in the hip joint itself
~ circulation inadequacies
~ your stabilization recruitment
~ your proprioception and neuro-muscular patterns.
Clearly we can’t address the whole list in one blog post – you’d get bored and walk away…BUT playing with neuro-muscular patterning is always fun, AND it requires no hard work and delivers results in a jiffy – don’t you just love that combination?
Try this:
Stand in your regular, everyday posture, and try to sense where your legs start: most people sense their legs originating at the tops of their thighs.
When your hip-flexor muscle operates freely, the legs feel is though they begin higher up, just under the rib cage. Anatomically, hip-flexors originate from near the diaphragm, and extend along lower spine, pass diagonally through the pelvis, cross the groin, and connect to the top of the inner thigh. This structure is designed to function as internal suspenders connecting spine and legs.
This next exercise will introduce you to the sense of your hip-flexors as internal (and very springy) suspenders:
Put a couple of chip foam yoga blocks in a doorway, and then stand with one foot on that platform, with the other leg swinging freely from its suspender. Keep your hips level, and let your hanging leg relax into a gentle swing that requires little or no effort. Imagine a suspender attached just behind your respiratory diaphragm, and your hanging leg suspended from there, swinging freely through your pelvis. Explore this movement for several moments, maintaining relaxed upper body and even breath. Now step down from your platform, and compare the feeling in your legs and hips while standing and walking. Repeat on the other side (just so you don’t walk in circles for the rest of your day.)
Enjoy – yup, I full-heartedly mean it – new-found hip freedom.
I would really love it if you’d share your post – exercise experience with me, and this blog post with those who might need a bit more flexibility in their hips. And, of course, join a class for helicopter wide – view, and in-depth look at how we move, and the ways to move better.
