Hip Flexor Stretch

“Hey! It’s Ian Hart here with BackPainRelief4Life.com. I’m a Back Pain Relief Expert and I’m going to show you 4 stretches that you can do right now for instant relief of back pain. This is not going to be the end all be all of helping your back. It’s something that you can do right now that will give you some relief. Ultimately, if you’re dealing with back pain, we want to do something that is going to fix the root cause of the problem. Typically, there is a root cause but we’ll explain about that later. So right now let us get into it.

We’re going to start off with the:

(1) Hip Flexor Stretch: you’re getting in this position putting your knee down the floor try to find the pad or something that when you put pressure down you make sure that this way too. Putting your knee down here, 90 degrees of your front foot. Abs are going to be tight, this will going to allow more of a stretch in the hip flexors, you’re going to gently move your hips forward. Remember you’re not pushing down, you actually want to take pressure of this knee and move forward, so abs nice and tight. Take a deep breath in and then breathe out and move a little bit more forward. Hold it for 15 seconds and then relax. You can actually do that 3 sets. So relax and repeat. One thing I forgot to mention that’s very important with stretching is that you warm up or loosen up [before]. You can also if necessary you don’t feel like warming up in terms of riding a bike or going for a jog or doing mobility drills, is you can take a hot shower, very hot shower or going to a sauna and then you do this exercises. It’s important that you have blood flow going to the joints and to the muscles that allows them to be a little bit more pliable when we do the stretches. Stretching while you’re cold can sometimes have the opposite effect that you’re looking for, we want the muscles to relax. So let’s do the other side, we’re going to switch, so again you’re doing 3 sets 15 seconds, abs tight pushing the hips forward, deep breath in, feel the stretch kind of breathe into the hip flexors so you might feel this all the way up into the stomach. The hip flexors are attached to the lower lumbar spine. Then breathe out and then go forward, feel a bit stretch. Alright, so that’s the first stretch – the hip flexors. So if you have a bad back make sure you’re going slow in control using your elbow to get back into this position.

The next stretch we’re doing is the:

(2) Glutes Stretch: You’re going to take one leg [right leg/foot] put it over the pull your left knee into your chest. Deep breath in. Again, hold it for 15 seconds, we’re going to do 3 repetitions, deep breath in and pull back a little bit further. Hold that for 15 seconds, count, and then relax. And 3 sets so do 2 more sets, we’re going to show you on the left side so you can see from this angle. Pull back, deep breath in and breathe out. Alright, so go ahead and do 3 sets on each side. You’ll notice that each time that you’re going a little bit further into this stretch, that one is stretching your glutes. The gluteus maximus is a large muscle group right in your butt, it’s another term for your butt.

The next one we’re going to do is a:

(3) Piriformis Stretch: Piriformis is a small hip rotator that lies underneath the glutes and tends to be tighten a lot of people and we’re going to lay this leg straight out. You’re going to pull across bringing your knee to your shoulder and gently pull very slow and controlled. If you happen, if you’re pinching in your hips, just relax a little bit, the stretch might not work for you if you have very tight hips but we want to feel it deep down in here so you’re pulling for 15 seconds. Deep breath in, breath into that muscle so think about as you breathe in, feel that muscle and then breathe out. Pull back a little bit further again holding it for 15 seconds. I’ll show you on the other side, you’re pulling across. Remember, we don’t want to twist our body, we don’t want to torque our spine at all so back staying down and we’re pulling from the knee, left knee across to the right shoulder, focusing and feeling deep down below the glutes and the piriformis muscle, 15 seconds again 3 sets and relax.

You’re going to roll up again using your elbow if you’re feeling your back getting into the:

(4) Seated jack knife position: We’re also going to do 3 sets here. Sitting straight knees completely locked if you need to you can use a rope to wrap around your feet or a belt, just make sure you’re not tugging or bouncing. You go very slow and controlled. Knees completely locked which is very important moving from your lower back forward, reach for your toes, bring your forehead towards your knees, deep breath in and pull a little bit more forward and relax.

So there you go, there’s 4 stretches that you can do instantly that will help get you a little bit more flexible in certain areas that  tend to be tight that will help with the golf swing and will help relieving back pain and just in general will help you feel more relaxed. So there you go, that is 4 simple stretches that you can do in about 2 or 3 minutes  that will give you instant relief from back pain.”

Ian Hart is a Body-Mind Transformation expert, the creator of EarthFIT Training Systems, co-creator of BACK PAIN RELIEF4LIFE, and founder of BEAUFORTPERSONALTRAINING.COM and MYBACKPAINCOACH.COM. Ian and his team help people get into optimal shape in the safest, fastest and most effective way possible, using cutting edge science.