Balancing the Hip Flexors

Hi, buddy. I'm Tom McCook back here at Pilates anytime. We're gonna do a lesson today on the hip flexors. I'm here with Aaron and JD. And, you know, we've all talked about the hip flexors a lot as Pilates teachers and just in general how people live their lives with a lot of sitting, they can become tight and weak and affect our posture in how we move. So there's three primary ones that we're gonna focus on, even though there's more than three. Four actually that we're gonna work on.

The three key ones are the psoas major, the psoas minor, the iliacus, and then the fourth one which goes over your knee joint also is the rectus femoris. So we're just gonna do a little trace of those on our body. But before we do that, just think of what what does hip flexion mean? Let's just march in place for a moment. So here's hip flexion. Now hip flexion is also if you hinge the pelvis over your legs.

Let me do that a couple times. That's hip flexion. So hip flexion can come from the pelvis on the legs or the legs on the pelvis. And that affects the hip flexors pretty directly. Now the hip flexors run, the psoas major and the iliacus run from what's called your lesser trochanter, which is on the inner upper femur, over your pubic bone, and this red one right here is the iliacus, and it goes inside the bowl of the pelvis.

And it basically is your primary hip flexor. So you can think, oh, why do I have a psoas? Because when you lift the leg, a lot of times, because of the weight of the leg, when you hip flex, If it was just the iliacus doing that, the weight of the leg could pull the lumbar spine and the pelvis anterior. So you can think, okay, what is my psoas doing? So your psoas, along with the assisting and hip flexion is kind of a complex function but it also is a lumbar stabilizer. So you can imagine that your psoas, which is this spotted one, did you know that your psoas was orange and spotted?

It actually can hold the lumbar spine like a stack of envelopes. And when it contracts, it grabs on. And so when you lift the knee, it's helping to stabilize the lower back. And we want to get that to function a little better. Now this last guy, this blue guy, this thin one, is called the soas minor.

And it goes from the pubic bone all the way up to t 12, and it's a thin muscle, and it's underneath your organs. So we've been trained, and we all do this a lot in exercise, is to try to position the pelvis by just using our abdominal wall. If you hold your abs tight, it inhibits breathing, and your hip flexors can be weakened. So what we wanna do is we wanna improve the function of the hip flexors so then we can use the abdominal appropriately for bracing when it's necessary, but more for movement. Now the last guy is the rectus femoris, and it attaches on the anterior inferior iliac spine, which is in the front of the pelvis, It's a very long muscle, goes down and crosses over the knee joint and ties into the patellar tendon with the rest of the other quadricep muscles.

So we're just gonna trace from an energetic flow what these guys do. So with a we're gonna focus first on the psoas major. So just put your fingers right next to your belly button. Just imagine right behind your hands straight back on the spine is where the psoas attaches to the bodies of the vertebra, the sides of the vertebra, the the the discs, and the transverse processes, and just trace down to your inner thighs over your pubic bone. Just imagine the flow is down. We wanna get this guy to come more online because it tends to be a little inhibited.

There we go. And now same attachment, the iliacus ilioso as same attachment on the lesser trochanter. That's your main hip flexor. We're gonna think of oh, we just lost a little bit of our hip flexor. We're gonna imagine up from the inner and then out. And this guy tends to be tight.

So we wanna get it to lengthen so we can release tension so the pelvis can be in a better position. So it's from leiserture canter up and out. And then so as minor, we're just gonna brush from the pubic bone up and think up the front, breathing fluidly, easily, And now we're gonna take all that imagery and flows and do some exercise on the mat using the Franklin balls. So I'm gonna remove this out of our way right now. So you guys gonna grab the Franklin balls and come on to your back with your feet facing me, and we're gonna put the Franklin balls behind the pelvis on each side of your sacrum about the width of your sit bones.

Beautiful. Then have your feet in line with your sit bones and just take a moment just to take a few breaths to settle into gravity. And the first movement we're gonna do is just arch curl of the pelvis. Now just practice tipping your pelvis forward, meaning let the tail go towards the floor. So you're gonna arch the lower back. Now when you're doing that, you're shortening the iliacus it's sliding together.

The m- the muscle that moves over your pubic bone to your inner thigh, when you curl back, it's lengthening a little bit. Just do that nice and slow. And this is the first version. It's not a big stretch because your legs are bent. But it gets you a little bit.

Just touch Tom warm up. And you can also notice when you curl towards the ceiling that the bottom of the pelvis narrow so the pelvic floor and the lower back are actually working together actually in opposition. So when you curl as the pelvic floor shortens the lower back lengthens, and as you arch the pelvic floor lengthens the lower back shortens. Now just hold for a moment in the middle take hold of your right knee, hold behind your thigh with your right with your hand, and slide your left leg long on the floor. So now what we've done is we've lengthened out the the position of the hip flexors on that long leg side.

Now all I want you to do is on the exhale, curl the tail towards the back of the knee you're holding, but leave the knee right where it's at. Don't pull the knee in close to your chest. Leave it pretty far away. Just focus on the pelvis curling towards the ceiling. Tail towards the ceiling.

Other way. There you go. Now inhale tip it forward. That's it. And just go back and forth and picture your lengthening the hip flexor on the down leg side. Can you guys sense that a little bit? That's it. And that's tying all the way down to your inner thigh.

And the key thing with stretching your hip flexors is you don't wanna work hard on your shoulders and neck. We inhibit our hip flexors with neck and shoulder tension. Do one more on that side. And now bend the down leg and switch sides. I highly recommend that when you practice that you do something to release your hip flexors before you do any deep core work, if you've been sitting all day and your hip flexors are inhibited, You can do a lot of abdominal work and your back gets more compressed.

So first thing with the leg long, curl the tail towards the ceiling, then release the tail forward. And imagine the muscle is lengthening from the inner upper thigh over the pubic bone to the inside of the pelvic wall, and just sense that for a few breaths like that, exhale Tom curl, leave your knee you're holding still so you're not actually pulling on that knee at all. You're just holding it there so it makes it easier for you to support the position of your lower back and do one more. Very nice. Now coming back to the first leg, you're gonna hold the right leg again. Now we're gonna work on a little more focus on your psoas, even though all of them are subtly being affected.

Now hold this leg with both hands now and draw it in with your left leg, draw it in like you're developing the knee, draw it in on its own, reach it up to the ceiling with the left leg, reach the left leg. Hold this leg, draw this leg in on its own. Reach it straight up. Now long exhale let it lower towards the floor. Now imagine you're using that leg as a weight now to lengthen the muscles that attach from your spine to your inner thigh and then bend it back in.

Reach it up. On a long exhale as it lowers, imagine your lower back is melting towards the floor. That's it. Nice and smooth like that. Feel like you don't need to brace in your belly, especially don't brace in your neck and your shoulders and just sense that you're using the leg now as a weight. And don't think you need to tense your foot. Do any of that. Your foot you're just using the weight of your leg to eccentrically lengthen your deeper hip flexor muscles.

Do that one more time. I would do anywhere from like six to 10 reps. As this knee comes in, we'll switch sides and now develop the right leg in and up. On a long exhale as it lowers, see the psoas lengthening over the pubic bone down to the lesser turgantor of the inner thigh, just feel being really fluid, lower back melting towards the floor, and even let your head be heavier on the floor as you do that. So you're getting out of the way.

Your psoas also attaches right next to where your diaphragm attaches is a lot happening right there. Your enteric brain, you can make yourself much more parasympathetic and internally relaxed by working on these muscles is really great for your health and your immune system. One more. Now as you bring both knees up into tabletop, let me give you a moment of tabletop. You're gonna let go of tabletop by letting the blower legs relax, let the knees just hang.

So imagine that your tabletop is some other class, not this one. So your hip flex is attached to your inner thighs. So what we wanna do is move from where the legs meet the body. So without engaging your lower legs at all, let one knee come closer to your chest, one knee go towards the floor, and feel like you're just hinging. And when you do that, just imagine as you move like that, that you can start to breathe a little deeper, You can relax the lower belly and keep your knees tracking right over the center of the hip joint. And now just start to go a little quicker.

Nice and fluid. Still breathing low and deep. Now even touch your lower belly and notice, is it possible while you're doing this to not overly brace your lower belly? And can I breathe even a little deeper while I'm doing it? Movement and breath, we want it to go together. Couple more.

Tom come a little slower, a little slower. Now as you come into a halt, leaving your fingers in your belly, imagine your goal is to notice can I relax my belly and let both knees go towards the floor? And then lift, and don't think the goal that you have to touch the floor, go to where you can go where the lower back isn't going with the legs, not by bracing, though. Image the hip flexors are sliding apart, then they're sliding together, and just go nice and fluid. If you have to make it really small, that's fine. You're trying to restore function of that area. If you overly brace in the belly, we skip it. That's it.

One more. And then gently place one foot down. Your second leg, lift your hips and take the balls away, and just take a moment to notice how the lower back feels. My notice is a little longer, a little more on the floor. Now just even do a simple bridge now. Just curl off the floor.

Take a breath, and now soften the breast bone and lengthen back down, you might notice that it's easy to articulate the back, the exercise just feels generally easier. So now from there, you guys are gonna draw your knees into your chest, and we're gonna come up to standing to do a couple closed chain standing. That was all open chain. So we'll come on up with standing. Very nice, you guys.

So for this position, we're gonna take and this ties back to what we did in gate in another lesson. We're gonna step your left foot forward right foot back and only have about one foot's distance between your feet front to back and about six inches left to right. Now, just practice, all I want you to do is to practice taking your center of mass, which is a little below the belly button on a diagonal, towards your left foot as you bend your front knee. Now hold it there. And what I'd like you to do is just practice reaching into your back foot and feeling the big toe ball of the foot and the little toe ball of the foot on that back leg and just sense that for a moment. Now just notice all I want you to do here is straighten the back knee. That's all we're going to do, we're going to focus on the iliacus right here.

So I want you to shift your pelvis a little more to the left. Feel that's kind of creating a little more of an opening in that back hip. Now all we're gonna do here is on the exhale, posteriorly tip your pelvis, take your tail forward as you press into your back foot, and then release it. It's okay to let the heel be a little bit off the ground. But you're not losing the back foot, and you'll notice the tendency, but you wanna bend the knee.

So keep the legs straight and feel that flexion where you're opening the hip, but you're keeping the legs strong. And this relates to a part of the gait cycle called shift. Now we're gonna add something to it. So as you curl, to add a little more flexion, internally rotate the arms, sink your ribs in, and lift your chin, and then release it. And again, so it's pelvis tips back, ribs sink in, internal rotation.

One more time. And release now from there, you're gonna stay on that same side. You're just gonna lower the back knee to the mat. Now with the back knee, again, have that same gap left to right, and with the back foot untuck it and let the foot go a little wider than the knee so the leg goes a little bit internal. Put your right hand against your your front of your belly, left hand on your lower back, and square your hips to the front of your mat.

Now all you're gonna do is just practice taking the tail forward, tail back. You start to feel how that now we're getting a little more into the iliacus, but also the rect fem, the muscle that runs down the front of the thigh. That's it. Now, when you curl forward this next time, hold it, contract your glute on that back leg, and put your left hand on your front knee. Now let your spine side bend a little to the left, let your spine rotate a little towards the back leg. Now stay there. Take the back side arm straight off your shoulder on that diagonal with the fingers facing down.

Now press through the heel of your hand, pull back through your waist. And as you breathe, breathe the length of your spine for five big breaths. Keep taking the tail forward. Waistline back. Focus on keeping the back glute contracted.

Two more breaths. And one, Slowly release, help yourself back up to standing, and then we'll take side too. So we're going to step forward with the second side, which is the right leg. Again, about a foot front to back, six inches left to right. Now just practice taking your center of mass towards your front foot and feel your three foot points, ball the big toe, little toe in the heel, and feel how the foot has gone into pronation, so it's flatter right now.

Now with your back leg, press into your two front foot points, big Tom, little toe, and let the pelvis shift a little more to the right. Now straighten that back leg. Now as you exhale curl the tail forward, and then release it and feel when you curl it forward is when you're feeling the stretch. Do your best to keep the back knee straight because it might wanna bend. If you feel like you can't do it without bending the back knee, step your feet closer together front to back.

Now as you hold it, this is just the gait cycle right here, hold it, ribs drop in, tail forward arms internally rotate. You should even feel a contraction in your lats right now, the muscles that connect your arms to your pelvis. Inhale release, exhale. Let the chin lift, which isn't what we tend to think about, but this is what happens when you walk when the spine is flexing, the pelvis and head are tipping in the same direction as the spine in the middle is tipping the other way. One more.

Now gently drop your back knee to the floor, untuck the back toes, take the foot a little wider. Put your right or left hand on your lower belly, right hand on your lower back, and square your hips to the front of your mat. Now just shift your hips a little bit to your right you start to feel how you're getting a little stretch in your inner thigh muscles too. Now just exhale, tail forward, tail back, and sense how the posterior tip is stretching the hip flexor muscles. Now hold the posterior, put your right hand on your knee, now side bend in your lower back, rotate towards the back leg.

Now take that back leg left arm straight off your shoulder, run a diagonal fingers down, press forward through the heel of your hand, pull back through the waist and just breathe the length of your spine. No need to hold your belly. Three more breaths. Keep your breath low and deep. One more big breath.

Slowly release, help yourself back to standing. So that's a nice little montage of the hip flexor stretches. I recommend practicing them, and then you can put them into your mat classes. You can give them to your clients from when they're sitting a lot or just with your own body, and just let us know how that goes for you. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you Pilates anytime.

Thank you guys.