Hip pain and stiffness is a common ailment in our society. People complain about stiff hips, weakness in the hip flexors and soft glutes. At NRG we believe that this derives from a whole range of issues with our society, such as:

- Driving too much/in a poor position
- Desk bound jobs
- Sedentary lifestyle
- Stiffness in our musculature above and below
- Fear of moving
- Incorrect movement patterns
- Poor physical preparation for training
- Lack of recovery

NRG are now going to talk you through two mobility exercises to improve our relationship with hip flexion (bringing your knee to your chest) and extension (taking your leg backwards away from the body) alongside hip rotation.

The pigeon: Taken from a yoga position, the pigeon is used to target not only the stiffness of the muscles around the hip, but also the relationship between the head of the femur and the capsule that it lies in. The femur is the long bone which attaches your hip to your knee. An easy sign to see if this movement is for you is to sit down on a chair and put the side of your right foot on your left knee. Was this a struggle? Is your right knee pointing towards the ceiling? If yes, then this is for you.

Start on the floor, on all fours, take your right knee and place it the other side (outside) of your left knee. Now slide your right knee as far back as you can, keeping your left foot on it's side. With your upper body, start with your chest up, when you are ready drop down onto your elbow and hold the position (See image 1). In this position it is particularly important to be positive with our breathing. Keep it rhythmical and consistent, if we hold our breath here it will keep our abdomen tight which will inhibit our hip position. We can progress this by pulling your left foot higher, our perfect position would be 90 degrees from the rest of the body.

Timings: With this one, hold at the bottom position for a minute, then repeat flowing from chest up to chest down for 10 reps. Repeat both sides x 3.

Image 1: From left to right - Pigeon, collapsed pigeon

Our second exercise will target the hip flexors, the mystery muscle psoas and hip extension. As humans, we spend a lot of time slouched in a chair whether that is at work, in a car or at home. Being sat in this position, your hips are flexed at 90 and sometimes cannot relax effectively. This can cause stiffness in our hip flexors, which can also bring pain to the area as they never relax properly. We will talk about hip flexor activation/deactivation of the hip in a future blog. How we can fix this is by bringing the body out of the 90 degree angle and bringing the hips behind the body.

- Low Lunge: Our second movement is a more dynamic movement than the pigeon. It also requires a little bit of exploration from you. Start on one knee, the other knee resting behind you (See image 2). Now keeping your weight on your back leg, lean the hips forwards but keep the body upright. Now with the same arm as leg back, bring the arm overhead and lean away from the back leg. Now when you are comfortable, squeeze your glute/bum cheek (on the back leg) as hard as you can. Feel the tissues tighten around the front of the hip and keep stretching. You may feel your body start to tighten, if so, release the glute squeeze, three heavy breaths and then go again.

Timings: Hold this for a minute each leg and repeat 3 times. But explore! Find what angle works for you, how you can manipulate your hip to get the greatest stretch, everyone is different.

Have any issues or questions you want answering? Comment below or send NRG a message from our contact page.

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