This Weeks MostFit Master Trainer Tip comes from Santo Riva of Victory Performance
If you sit more than a couple hours a day, you likely have tight hip flexors. Your hip flexors are all of the muscles that cross your hip joint on the front of the body. When they contract, your knee comes closer to your face. Tight hip flexors are commonly associated with and are often the primary cause of low back, hip, knee and even neck pain. They can also significantly limit an athlete’s performance.
In order to effectively stretch these muscles you have to know that some of the hip flexors not only cross the hip, but they also cross the knee. If you don’t perform stretches that target both the 2-joint and 1-joint hip flexors, you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to opening up your hips.
Try these two hip flexor mobility variations. The key in both of these stretches is that you keep your pelvis in neutral or even slightly in posterior rotation (tailbone tucked under and low back flattened). This ensures that you are not blowing past the hip flexor stretch and compensating by arching your lower back.
For questions about these stretches or more info on how to keep your body pain free, email info@victoryperformancept.com or visit www.victoryperformancept.com.