Chances are you’re seated right now reading this. Hell, I’m sitting writing it.

Let’s face it. We all sit way too damn much.

Since you sat down to watch your first Saturday cartoon’s, the war to regain your posture has began. We battle gravity on a daily basis as it pulls us back into a position we grew up in.

 

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As the hours of sitting add up, your mobility slowly diminishes. That feeling of “Stiffness” creeps into your hips and legs and seems here to stay.

Do you always feel like that area in front of your hips area so damn tight? Yes, those nasty hip flexors are the single most overactive muscles in the body. And no matter how much you stretch, those hip flexors just get stiffer?

We understand the frustration. We’ve personally dealt with the same annoyance along with most of our clients. But we have the solution for you.

If there is one single thing you should be doing every day, it is the HIP FLEXOR STRETCH. Take it with your morning joe, to start your workout, as activity recovery between sets, or to break up your day at the office.

Already do it and still not working? Hmm, then it’s time to try something more effective.

 

REESTABLISH BASELINE MOBILITY FIRST.

 

By putting the body in half kneeling, we can lengthen the hips flexors while simultaneously improving our posture and alignment. The picture below is the ideal setup for the hip flexor stretch.

As you can see, the shoulders, hips, and knee are aligned vertically. From this position, our focus should be on contracting the gluteus maximum and breathing deep into the stomach with belly breaths. You can hold this position for time (30 to 90 seconds) or a number of breaths. Give your butt a little tap to make sure it’s contracting too.

Above is how not to do it. We’ve seen this version way too many times. As you can see, there is too much forward lean and the alignment of the shoulder, hip, and knee gets thrown off. Certainly, you may “feel” you are getting more of a stretch with the forward lean, but you are actually feeding into lower crossed syndrome by increasing the pelvic tilt anteriorly. We don’t want that ‘over arch’ in the low back.

 

FEEL BETTER.

When the hips flexors effectively reestablish their baseline mobility, your health, performance, and physique all benefit.

The incidence of a low back injury keeping you out of the game or gym will decrease significantly. This stretch alone can even keep you off the operating table.

How so?

Within the hip flexor muscle group, we have the illiopsoas. Since these muscles attach from five vertebrae to your femur, they play a large role in spinal stabilization. From here, the hip flexor stretch will allow us to realign our pelvis and give you that strong foundation you need.

 

PERFORM BETTER.

From this base, the gluteals are able to fire more powerfully. Your ability to run faster, throw harder kicks, and adding another plate or two to your lifts is just the beginning.

Sound good?

We think so too.

 

LOOK BETTER.

Since it is summer, we’ll want to take our shirts off to show off those once inhibited abs.

Now, don’t go thinking that the hip flexor stretch will solve all the world’s problems like global warming, poverty, or your high body fat percentage. First and foremost, you have to lose your excess body fat to get those abs to pop. You can do so with a sound nutrition plan, well executed training program, and some metabolic work.

Once you get there, you may still have that lower ‘pooch’ that doesn’t seem to go away. It could be a result of your anterior pelvic tilt (or that ‘over arch’ of your low back) that we discussed earlier.

This will cause your the lower portion of your belly to bulge out, despite your low body fat percentage.

Enter the hip flexor stretch once more to flatten those abs. When the hip flexors are too engaged, they can take over on specific movements that we ideally want to target the abdominals. The anterior ‘core’ can be more actively engaged in all of your movements.

Take the plank for example. Avoid sagging your hips to the floor and putting your body into that anterior pelvic tilt.

 

TRAIN HERE.

The 1/2 kneeling position is a game changer when it comes to getting our Sons of Strength that are locked in an extension, out of it. With that said, the hip flexor stretch becomes a place where we do a ton of work from and can re-build more optimal stabilization patterns.

For the upper body: Try vertical pressing, chops and lifts, single arm rowing, and punch outs from half kneeling. Even a single arm bicep curl would be beneficial here! Work these and any other variations you can think of into your program.

For the lower body: When you perform split squats, lunges, and all their evil variations, keep this alignment in mind. Don’t allow your upper body to lean forward. One way to prevent this is by actually adding weight. Place a kettlebell or dumbbell in the rack position (in front of your chest) can help you maintain the proper form we’re after.

 

There you have it. Get out of your seat and into the 1/2 Kneeling Hip Flexor position. Your hips and health will thank us later.

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