Fit & Bendy Tip of the Day: Relieving hip pain during hip opening... For Tara Bailey. Question: My favourite hip flexor stretch is in the lunge position with the back knee against a wall, and leaning back, or in a split leaning back to grab my back leg. The only problem is I seem to constantly pinch my rotators and/or abductors while doing these such that it is too uncomfortable for me to hold. If I ignore the discomfort and hold it, my rotators and abductors are in pain for a good week-10 days. I have tried rocking my pelvis in another direction, or twisting my body to try alleviating this, but no such luck. Any tips? In these kind of deep hip flexor stretches it is very, very easy to come out of alignment in an effort to go deeper into the stretch. The most common way to come out of alignment is to allow the hip to rotate outwards. If you were looking at someone doing this stretch and they were out of alignment you would see that the hips are twisting out towards the back leg, the back leg is coming out at an angle across the body instead of straight backwards, and the shoulders are off to the side and not over the hips. When the hips are rotated open this way it will definitely put pressure on the hip in strange and unpleasant ways, especially if you have some existing imbalances in the hip. I would strongly recommend not doing these stretches until you can do them with the hips in alignment: both hip bones pointing forwards in one line, back leg coming straight back from the hip socket, top of the leg facing the floor, pelvis lifted and tucked. This will ensure that you are only stretching the front of the hip. In the meantime, do your lunges with your hips in a neutral position (hip bones even and pelvis tucked), develop the muscles in your hips to hold the position stable, and use your muscles to open the hip flexors. It is never a good idea to push so hard into a stretch that you have pain for days afterwards. That is a sign that something isnt going right! Back off, investigate the problem, correct the imbalances, and come back to the stretch when you are stronger. Hope this helps, and happy bendings!
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 19:05:17 +0000
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