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Calling all desk-sitters: All that sedentary time observing a display screen is a big contributor to the nagging decrease backache that’s been annoying you. That is in all probability nothing you haven’t heard earlier than, however do you know it may not be your again that’s truly the problem? It’s your hip flexors.
If you sit, your hip flexors stay in a contracted state. Extended sitting may cause these muscular tissues to shorten and shrink, limiting your means to elongate the muscular tissues and totally straighten at your hips if you’re lastly upright once more. So, what are you to do? Yoga, after all. You need to use your observe to offset the results of all that sitting, stretch your hip flexors, and relieve related again ache.
Anatomy of Your Hip Flexors
A number of hip flexor muscular tissues cross the entrance of the hip and create hip flexion once they contract by pulling the thighs and chest towards one another. Most likely a very powerful hip flexor is the iliopsoas. It’s truly composed of two deep muscular tissues: the iliacus and the psoas.
The psoas runs alongside the backbone and attaches to the edges of the lumbar vertebrae. The iliacus originates on the interior bowl of the pelvis. Each muscular tissues cross the ground of the pelvis and insert on the interior higher femur (thigh bone). As a result of the muscular tissues are buried so deep, it’s straightforward to grasp why there will be confusion about their location and position in on a regular basis life. However these muscular tissues are extraordinarily vital with regards to guaranteeing your stability, stability, postural alignment, and full vary of movement.
If you stand, the hip flexors contract as you raise your leg if you stroll, run, come right into a lunge, step up stairs, and so many different actions. When you’re mendacity flat in your again, the hip flexors can both raise your leg, like if you draw your knees towards your chest, or raise your chest right into a sit-up. In yoga, Boat Pose (Navasana) is very efficient for strengthening the iliopsoas as a result of it calls for that the muscle isometrically contract to carry the load of the legs and higher physique.
How Hip Flexors Lose Flexibility
Most issues with the hip flexors don’t originate in an absence of energy however in an absence of flexibility. To know how these muscular tissues lose their flexibility, think about somebody with a damaged arm whose bent elbow is encased in a plaster solid. When the solid is eliminated after a number of weeks, the muscular tissues, tendons, ligaments, and even pores and skin across the elbow may have shortened, and the elbow received’t instantly straighten. It’s going to take the affected person a number of weeks of stretching to revive the total vary of movement.
Equally, if the hip is continually saved in a flexed place, akin to with extended sitting, the hip flexors will shorten and shrink, limiting your means to completely lengthen your hip.
Points Brought on by Tight Hip Flexors
If the iliopsoas and different hip flexors are tight, they pull down and ahead on the pelvis, which tilts the pelvis ahead and compresses the decrease again. Image a person standing with the entrance of his pelvis tilting ahead and his tailbone lifting. To face upright, he has to overarch his decrease again. Anatomically, that is known as hyperextension; generally, it’s known as “swayback.” Extended standing or sitting on this place will increase stress on the side joints of the decrease backbone, which in flip can contribute to arthritis in these joints.
With the most effective of intentions, yoga college students generally create a muscle imbalance that contributes to this troublesome anterior (ahead) pelvic tilt. Most yoga practitioners work lengthy and onerous to enhance their hamstring flexibility however spend a lot much less time stretching their hip flexors.
Ultimately, the hamstrings lengthen considerably, whereas the hip flexors enhance solely barely. The outcome: The comparatively tighter hip flexors tip the pelvis ahead as a result of the comparatively longer hamstrings not exert an equal counterpull on the sitting bones of the pelvis.
If the hip flexors are tight, the ensuing anterior pelvic tilt and lumbar hyperextension may cause issues along with again ache, together with problem in standing yoga poses akin to Warrior 2 (Virabhadrasana II) and Triangle Pose (Trikonasana), through which the first leg motion is opening to the edges as an alternative of flexing ahead or extending again.
Tight hip flexors may create challenges in poses requiring full extension (straightening) of the hip joint. These poses embody backbends akin to Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) and Upward-Dealing with Bow Pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana) and standing poses like Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I) and Warrior 3 (Virabhadrasana III)). In all of those poses, tight hip flexors may cause painful compression within the decrease again.
4 Greatest Hip Flexor Stretches to Relieve Ache
Often training hip flexor stretches is vital to counterbalance the extended hip flexion of sitting for hours.
1. Warrior 1 (Virabhadrasana I)
Warrior Pose 1 could be a hip flexor stretch. As you’re standing with one leg ahead and one leg again, place your fingers on the entrance pelvis bones. You need to have the ability to really feel a small, spherical protuberance on either side, known as the anterior superior iliac backbone, or ASIS.
The ASISes are good indicators of the lean of the pelvis. On the again leg, the iliopsoas will attempt to pull the pelvis and lumbar backbone down and ahead into an anterior tilt. To counter this, use your fingers to raise the ASISes. Maintain this as you bend your entrance knee, retaining your again knee straight and your again heel grounded. Really feel the iliopsoas lengthen and visualize the backbone lifting out of the pelvis.
You can even work with the pelvic alignment in Warrior 1 by bringing your consciousness to your decrease again and the again of your pelvis. Maintain or strap or belt round your waist. As you progress into Warrior 1, don’t let your ASISes drop down and ahead. As an alternative, transfer your again into the belt, transfer your tailbone down away from the belt, and raise your backbone out of the belt. The belt turns into some extent of orientation that will help you align your pelvis and get a deep iliopsoas stretch.
2. Full or Half Reclining Hero Pose (Supta Virasana)
One other hip flexor muscle is the rectus femoris. When it’s tight, it may well restrict hip flexion and trigger issues in yoga poses. It’s one of many quadriceps muscle on the entrance of the thigh and it originates close to the ASIS, runs down the middle of the thigh, and inserts on the shinbone (tibia) slightly below the knee. When the rectus femoris contracts and shortens, it not solely extends or straightens the knee, it additionally flexes the hip.
To stretch the rectus femoris, you want a pose that flexes the knee and extends the hip, like Reclining Hero Pose. As you sit down between your heels and lie again on this pose, the rectus femoris lengthens.
To stretch the rectus femoris with out compressing the decrease again, place a bolster or folded blankets comfortably below your again. You can even do Half Reclining Hero Pose, through which you sit up with one leg bent and the opposite leg prolonged straight in entrance of you. You may sit on a bolster, block, or folded blanket to permit more room.
3. King Arthur’s Pose
This pose attracts on the identical alignment as Warrior 1 however whereas kneeling so there’s much less demand on the muscular tissues to stabilize you as you’re stretching.
As you come right into a Low Lunge going through away from a wall, place your again foot in opposition to the wall. Place your fingers in your entrance knee and straighten your backbone straight up whereas permitting your tailbone to launch down. You need to really feel a robust stretch alongside the entrance of your left thigh.
You may take a folded blanket beneath your knee for cushioning or observe the identical pose standing by putting your hand on a chair, counter, or wall and bending one leg behind you and greedy it along with your hand or a strap.
4. Mountain Pose (Tadasana)
Should you have a tendency to face with a swayback, or an exaggerated curve in your decrease again often known as lordosis, creating consciousness of your hip flexors is very vital.
In Mountain Pose (Tadasana), observe lifting the ASISes, subtly shifting your tailbone down, and lifting your lumbar backbone. Putting a belt or strap round your waist, as you probably did in Warrior 1, might assist improve your consciousness of your pelvic alignment on this pose.
Typically folks attempt to right a ahead tilt of the pelvis by participating their stomach muscular tissues. However gripping your abdominals received’t management the anterior pelvic tilt when you’ve got tight hip flexors—not even in easy standing postures. It additionally tends to constrict your breath.
Practising hip flexor stretches, particularly after a protracted day of sitting, might help you discover area in your pelvis—and assist shield you from compression and ache in your decrease again.
This text has been up to date. Initially revealed June 29, 2021.
