Hip Exercise - Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch

Commonly Used For: Hip pain, knee pain and low back pain.

Video Transcription: This is a kneeling hip flexor stretch that's going to stretch the muscles across both your hip joint and your knee joint that flex the hip. You're going to be kneeling so it's nice to use some sort of padding just so you don't bother your knees. This is just a gardening pad. You can get it at any hardware store. [Here's one from Amazon.com.] So what you're going to do is you're going to have to kneel on the side that you're going to stretch. The other leg can be up out in front of you. You want to make sure that your legs are pointing straight forward. Then, you're going to come up to your pelvis. Make sure that it's nice and tucked under. You don't want to arch through your low back. Keep your glutes squeezed and your abdominals tight, maintaining this tucked position. You're slowly going to lunge forward until you feel a stretch across the front of your hip and down in the front of your thigh. You should not feel any low back pain. If you do, back out of the stretch. You might have been arching too much. You need to tuck under more, really, really squeeze those glutes. That should help. You might feel a stretch right here without lunging forward at all. If you do, you can just hold it right there. If you don't, slowly lunge forward again until you feel that stretch down your thigh. Again, with no low back pain. And then you want to hold the stretch 30 seconds to a minute. That's your kneeling hip flexor stretch.

Hip Exercise - Standing Hip Flexor Stretch

Commonly Used For: Low back pain or hip pain.

Video Transcription: This is a standing hip flexor stretch. It's going to stretch primarily the short hip flexors that only cross the hip joint here. It's primarily used with people that have low back pain or knee pain. So the first thing that you're going to want to do is get into a stride stance, which is one foot in front of the other, about hip distance apart. You want to make sure your feet are pointed straight forward. They're not turning outward or inward at all. And you want to come up to your pelvis, and make sure you're not arching through your low back. So you want to tuck all the way under by tightening your glutes and your lower abdominals. Once you're in that nice tucked position, you want to keep your back leg straight -- this is the leg that you're stretching -- and you're slowly going to lunge forward until you feel a stretch across the front of your hip joint here. You should not feel any low back pain. If you do, back out of the stretch, and try tucking again. Maybe you didn't tuck under enough. So tuck ALL the way under, you might feel a stretch already, even without lunging -- and if you do, just hold here. If you don't, then you can try again to slowly lunge forward. Then hold that position for 30 seconds to 1 minute. And that's your standing hip flexor stretch.