loosening the hips

[randomguy2014]

Hello all!! I've been quite inflexible my whole life... I tried doing yoga but I wasn't very consistent, mainly because the classes were so expensive. I can't touch my toes without bending my knees.

My main objective is to be more loose so I can be better at dancing, which I plan to pick up again after not doing it since I was a little kid. 

 

What exercises do you recommend I should do to improve my flexibility, especially in the hips?

 

I would be very thankful for any suggestions.

 

Love to you all!!

[Sunmage]

Hey,

 

I hope you like pain

 

Here is a awesome routine. The mentioned Agile 8 worked great for me.

 

You don't need a foam roller. Sewer pipe is cheap and works great. I have been using barbells, too. The area where you put the plates on I have heard plastic bottles are ok, too.

 

"Becoming a Supple Leopard" is a great book on increasing flexibility, too.

[jmk]

Yoga with Adriene on YouTube is great. She has many types of workouts and ones specific to hips.

[randomguy2014]

niiiiiiiice!! thanks to both of you!! I'll check these out <3

[TMedina]

I recommend searching for "hip opening" or "hip opener" poses - you don't even need to practice a full yoga course; just spend time practicing the poses.

 

Hips and knees, for my two cents.

[Slayer]

My favorite hip openers are frog pose (this one) and pigeon pose. Tough, but they feel so good!

[Machete]

Hey,

 

I hope you like pain

 

Here is a awesome routine. The mentioned Agile 8 worked great for me.

 

You don't need a foam roller. Sewer pipe is cheap and works great. I have been using barbells, too. The area where you put the plates on I have heard plastic bottles are ok, too.

 

"Becoming a Supple Leopard" is a great book on increasing flexibility, too.

 

Seconded. Agile 8 every day.

 

Also, take notes, here's a one-hour lecture with Kelly Starrett. Jam-packed with Supple Leopard knowledge.

 

[swordPlayer]

I fully recommend pigeon pose. I have super-tight hips myself and so whenever I stretch or warm-up for any physical activity, I always throw in a pigeon pose!

[Taijignome]

I intensely dislike videos like the one posted above.  The information might be OK but everything is context dependent. People who have a really balanced understanding of human movement wouldn't make one sized fits all rules for how hips or feet must look.  To scrutinize movement in this manner neglects the fact that everyone's structure is different. Hips may turn out because of the architecture and anatomy of the skeleton and not just because someone is weak and lazy.  There is also very poor evidence that these things lead to injury (correlation does not equal causation).  That doesn't mean you can't explore other options for movement... it just means that if you try and correct something that isn't wrong, it may actually increase the risk of problems.

 

Also... what does "opening" the hips even mean?

[Shakeel_R]

You know, I would say dancing. A few classes of Salsa, bachata and kizomba should do the trick right? 

Otherwise, yoga. But I do agree with @Taijignome The information in the vid is not too bad. Common sense. But it is different for every person. 

[Hazard]

On May 24, 2016 at 7:27 PM, Taijignome said:

Also... what does "opening" the hips even mean?

 

Geometry. Your torso and upper leg come together at the hip, creating a pivot point.  Pull your knee up to your chest and you've closed your hip (angle).  Move you knee away from your chest, with relation to the hip as pivot point, and you've opened your hip (angle).  Your ability to open your hip more can be improved through various static and dynamic flexibility exercises.

 

 

[Sahaja]

On 5/24/2016 at 7:27 PM, Taijignome said:

Also... what does "opening" the hips even mean?

 

18 hours ago, Hazard said:

 

Geometry. Your torso and upper leg come together at the hip, creating a pivot point.  Pull your knee up to your chest and you've closed your hip (angle).  Move you knee away from your chest, with relation to the hip as pivot point, and you've opened your hip (angle).  Your ability to open your hip more can be improved through various static and dynamic flexibility exercises.

 

 

 

 

I'm gonna take this a little deeper, Hazard isn't wrong but that description isn't really complete.  It would be if hips were hinge joints, but they're ball and socket joints that allow us to lift our legs forward and backwards, move our legs across and away from our center line (side to side), and to rotate the legs (point the toes in and out).  They do all those movements simultaneously while also supporting the majority of our body weight.

 

Our lifestyles have evolved to a place where we don't often have a reason to use our hips full range of motion, and without using that full range we lose some of it, our hips get tight, the muscles weaken and shorten, the connective tissue become stiff and the bones get brittle... So we 'open' our hips to regain some of the range of motion and to restore strength and flexibility.  Most people don't even realize what they're losing until they try some activity that uses their hips for more than walking or getting in and out of a chair.  That's why people that are getting into Yoga, Martial Arts, Dance and things like that, suddenly realize they need to work specifically on the strength and flexibility of their hips to regain what they've lost from years of limited use.

 

A perfect example of how complicated our hips are is simply getting into a car, one hip lifts a knee, rotates the leg to point the knee inward and lifts it out to the side to put a foot in the car, while the other hip also rotates in and then out while pushing that leg out to the side and controlling our body weight as we move our butt into the seat.  Simple right?

 

When I was a kid the neighborhood I lived in had a favorite grandma.  Mrs. Terry was a proper southern, christian, LADY.  She never raised her voice, always had a kind or comforting word (and candy), and was never seen without makeup and being 'properly dressed'.  Mrs. Terry died in her late 70s or early 80s when a blood clot broke loose and stopped her heart about a week after she broke her hip.  She broke it getting into a car.  No fall, no accident... just a 'pop'.

 

That's what 'opening our hips' means, and why it matters.

[Taijignome]

Good discussion... The question was meant to point out that the language we use can mean a number of things and that context is important.  It's a loaded word in the same way I feel relaxation is or "activate your muscle" is.  Also, if you "close" in the front of the joint, technically you're "opening" in the back.  So, if your reference is only anterior, then you miss out on some good stuff in the back.  

 

It probably makes the most sense to stick to the defined descriptors of: internal rotation, external rotation, flexion, extension, abduction, and adduction when describing motion.  My problem with this though is that it's overly mechanical and doesn't tap into the nice visualization that "open" can create (open your hip like a flower blooming, or tea leaves unfolding, etc.)

[Sahaja]

As a male yoga teacher I stay away from metaphors involving blooming and opening in class, and I have to stay away from technical descriptors like abduction or anterior as well.   I look for clear language that's not too flowery or technical.  If a student hears a technical term it can break their focus when they consciously remember the meaning.  Simple, clear, basic language is what I need to keep my students in the room and in the pose or practice.

 

When working the hips specifically I like to describe the movement of the knee to get the hip movement I'm looking for, 'drop your knee to the side', 'squeeze your knee into your chest', 'separate the knees', etc.  In the yoga community the phrase 'open the hips' is used a lot, but in the classes I've been in it doesn't usually imply a specific movement, it's used more to talk about improving strength, flexibility and range of motion in the entire joint pair.