You may have been told you have tight hip flexors, or perhaps you suspect they’re tight because you spend most of your day seated… so how do you know if they are tight and what can you do?
Where are your hip flexors?
Your hip flexors are the muscles at the front of your hip that help your body hinge into a seated position. They also help you raise your knee to your chest, so they can become tight and shortened due to long periods of sitting.
Image: Essential Anatomy5
Why is having tight hip flexors a problem?
Tight or shortened muscles (anywhere in your body) will affect your mobility and posture. Tight hip flexors will stop your glutes (butt muscles) from functioning properly, leading to imbalance and poor movement. Your glutes are one of the most powerful muscles in your body, if they aren’t functioning properly, you will have to gain your power and movement from elsewhere.
Because of your tight hips, you may experience hip pain, knee pain, lower back pain, ankle pain just to name a few.
3 Common Signs Your Hip Flexors Are Tight
You have an excessive arch in your lower back that often feels sore or achy. When the hip flexors are tight, they will pull your pelvis forward creating the arch. Try lying on the floor - you will find you have a large gap between your lower back and the floor. Now try to engage your abdominals by drawing in your belly button in towards your spine and tucking your pelvis bone. If you find this a struggle, this could be an indicator that your hip flexors are tight.
Lying down on your back with your knees bent, bring one knee into your chest. Any pinching at the front of your hips could indicate tightness of your hip flexors. The tightness leaves less space for movement, hence you feel pinching. You may find one side moves more freely than the other, this is also quite common.
One leg appears longer than the other. When the hip flexors are tight, which can occur just on one side, the pelvis is pulled forward, changing the way your femur sits in your hip socket. This results in one leg appearing longer. You may feel knee, ankle or back pain as a result of this as your body tries to manage the imbalance.
There are many ofther signs and tests for tight hip flexors, but you have to remember, they should not be blamed for everything. Muscles work in pairs and there are groups of muscles that support each other. Dysfunction could stem from any of these areas.
What can you do about tight hip flexors?
Reduce the amount of time you are sat down. frequent movement allows your muscles to shorten and lengthen, preventing ‘tightness’ from developing..
Stretch tight, shortened muscles. There are many different ways to stretch your hip flexors. This is just one of them.
3. Soft Tissue Therapy can really help give you a kick start, allowing you to feel what it’s like to have more open free moving hips., and making it more accessible for you to upkeep.
Are you aware of how tight your body is?
Often people don’t know how a relaxed free moving body feels because they are used to the body they live in. You live day in day out with your restrictions which are normal for you.
As a Soft Tissue Therapist, I can feel areas of tension that you aren’t aware of. It’s only through palpation that you realise just how “tight” you are.
EMMETT technique is just one of the therapies I use and it is extremely efficient and effective at releasing hip flexor tightness.
Relaxed hip flexors will improve your posture and the way your move. Any pains you felt before will also likely change and reduce.
As with all soft tissue therapies though, you do need to follow it up with stretching and strengthening of the relevant muscle groups.
So how do you feel about your hip flexors?
Do they need attention - movement, stretching, soft tissue release?
If stretching and movement isn’t working for you, you will probably benefit from soft tissue therapy. If you have been tight for a long time, your body will have created many different compensation patterns, all of which need to be addressed.
I am Sabrina, Movement Coach, Personal Trainer and Soft Tissue Therapist based in Worcester Park helping people overcome their aches, pains and recurring injuries through the use of soft tissue therapy and good healthy movement.