How to improve your hip flexibility

Hip flexibility is important for low back pain, Lordosis and building core strength & stability. It helps your body function properly and can reduce the risk of muscle imbalances and pain. Knowing how to improve your hip flexibility is therefore a key part of keeping your joints healthy.

The importance of flexible hips

For this blog I’m going to focus on its benefits for posture particularly, Lordosis.

1. Many tight muscles are protecting an unstable joint. In order to improve Lordosis, stretching is essential but together with the right exercises to stabilise the hip and spine.
2. If the muscles of your hips are stiff and tight they don’t absorb shock very well. This can make simple tasks like walking and running detrimental to your joint health. Not because they are bad in and of themselves but because they cause more shock.
3. As your joints become more stable and they are able to absorb more shock this reduces pressure on your low back and allows your lumbar spine to flatten.

What do your hips do?

The primary role of your hips is to produce movement, like lifting, walking, running and rotation. So if we break down these movements we can begin to understand the stretches we need to do. At a basic level our hip lifts the knee, turns the toes & knees in and out and extends our leg behind us.

Stretch Movements

If we take these movements we can turn them into stretches. So rather than stretching muscles, stretch movements and you’ll find your flexibility improve.

The key movement to improve your Lordosis is extending your leg behind you because it involves the Psoas muscle. You must be careful not extend your low back as you stretch this movement as this can make your Lordosis worse.

In the tutorial above you’ll learn the key stretches to improve your hip flexibility and teaching points to help you do them. If you’d like more of these stretches please download my free 14-day micro-workout. You’ll receive the 4 best stretches for Lordosis and two follow up emails with extra exercises and stretches to add to your workout.