16 Hip Stretches Your Body Really Needs

While your butt muscles have different functions than your hip flexors, in addition they are inclined to work in tandem with them. That’s why, as you’ll see below, a few of the very best stretches for hips goal those surrounding muscles as well.

What’s the issue with tight hips?

Tight hips aren’t just uncomfortable—they will result in all varieties of aches and pains in other areas of your body.

“People deal with the hips and say their hips are tight, but we don’t all the time think concerning the indisputable fact that the lower back connects to our legs on the hip,” Charlee Atkins, CSCS, registered yoga instructor and creator of Le Sweat workout app, tells SELF.

Tight hip flexors make it harder in your pelvis to rotate properly during exercise and on a regular basis movements, which might cause your lower back to overcompensate, “and this could be a setup for lower-back injury,” Teo Mendez, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at NY Orthopedics who focuses on operative and nonoperative management of sports-related injuries, musculoskeletal injuries, and arthritis, tells SELF.

An excessive amount of tightness in your hips also can make it harder in your glutes to activate. Since they’re opposing muscle groups, when one is basically tight, the opposite becomes lengthened. This takes away a few of its ability to contract. When your glutes are on this compromised position, it will possibly cause other muscles to do more work than they need to, making your workouts less efficient and sometimes increasing your risk of injury. That’s an enormous deal, California-based trainer Holly Perkins, CSCS, tells SELF.

“Strong, powerful glutes create the anchor in your entire pelvis,” she says. When your glutes are lengthened, “that has profound implications in your alignment and movement,” she says. Compromised glutes can throw off your form up and down your entire body. Consequently, you possibly can develop into more quad-dominant, making your hamstrings weaker and possibly affecting your knees too, Perkins says.

Limitations in glute activation and hip mobility also can affect the way you absorb impact, Carol Mack, DPT, CSCS, a physical therapist at CLE Sports PT & Performance in Ohio, tells SELF. And that may set the stage for injury.

“For movements like squatting, the hip needs enough mobility to give you the chance to bend for hip flexion, rotation inward, and rotation outward,” she says. If you add plyometric exercises, like squat jumps, to the combination, your hips need to give you the chance to undergo that very same range of motion, but at a fair faster speed, Dr. Mack says. The quicker your hips, knees, and ankles can bend, the higher the power to soak up the impact or force from the bottom, she adds. Joint mobility and muscle strength must work together for that to occur effectively.

What are the advantages of hip stretches?

Hip stretches will help lengthen these muscles, helping to alleviate discomfort, decrease tightness, and increase mobility. This could all ultimately get your entire lower body functioning more optimally, since your hips are connected to—and performance in tandem with—all the pieces out of your lower back and pelvis to your glutes and legs. Since your hips are involved in so most of the movements you make, stretching them is an awesome option to keep them able to be just right for you.