Another awesome exercise to improve hip mobility. More specifically hip internal rotation and stretching the inner thigh muscles. It is important to restore hip internal rotation for walking, running and athletic activities. This exercise can be done on the ground and using a chair or bed.
Tweetables:
Hip And Inner Thigh Stretch [Click To Tweet]
Hip And Inner Thigh Stretch [Click To Tweet]
Ways to Stretch Your Hip And Inner Thigh [Click To Tweet]
Transcript:
This is Manu Kalia, physical therapist and Ayurveda herbalist. In this video, I’m going to show you a hip mobility technique, another way to stretch or mobilize the hip as well as some of the inner thigh muscles. So this is an easy exercise you can do and it’s important to restore hip internal rotation as well as stretch some of the adductors, the inner thigh structures. So easy, and you can even use a chair. We’re going to use this treatment table here.
In this technique I am trying to get internal rotation of the hip. So this can be done on the floor also, but I’m going to use this. I’m stretching my left side and my weight is on my right leg on the ground. Now, what I want to do is I’m going to place my knee in about a 90-degree angle. Now, I am targeting…this is the area I’m going to get a stretch on the inner hip, as well as some stretching on the inner thigh, too, primarily through here. Now, all I do is I’m going to bend my right knee. As I bend my right knee, I drop my body down and I get a stretch right in here. So it’s internal rotation I’m trying to get in this hip. Just by virtue of my leg being in this position, it kind of opens up everything on the inner side as well as the inside of the groin. So the hip capsule also is getting the stretch in this position.
What you want to do is you want to work at dropping down and you want to try to hit from different angles. So I’m working on going backwards. So I’m trying to see where I feel more restrictions, and when I get to that spot I can hang out there and I can oscillate. I can go back and forth nice and easy. So I’m stretching my capsule as well as the inner structures – my adductors and other thigh muscles.
I use my left hand, I place on the upper part of my thigh, and I stabilize and I actually maybe apply a little bit of pressure doing a glide in the downward direction or an angle. So maybe that glide, it gives me a stronger pull to that capsule. So I’m maintaining that and I’m mainly trying to keep my torso nice and straight. So I’m not bending forward to do that. I’m not going to get as much of a stretch then. We want to maintain an upright position. This is the area you’re targeting. You’re trying to get that internal rotation.
So in addition to dropping down and kind of hitting it from various angles, now you can move your foot up too, the front foot, and I can go further, or I can drop back and I can sit back here and try to hit it from different angles.
The next thing you can do is I want to work at doing a little more internal rotation so I can control that stretch of my pelvis also. So when I do and I roll my pelvis forward a little bit, so you can see I’m using my hand to kind of guide my thigh more into internal rotation. Remember, we’re talking about internal rotation of the hip. So I’m gliding that forward, come down, roll here, so the pelvis does this. My left pelvis is going forward slightly and I’m applying some pressure here and I’m trying to stretch, internal rotation at the thigh, stretch, internal rotation, stretch, internal rotation, stretch. So you can see I can really get to hit it from various angles. It’s a pretty strategy. Now, as I say, you can do this on the floor too, but this is one way to get at it.
I hope you found that helpful. Please share if you think it can help someone else. It’s important for getting that internal rotation at the hip and important for walking, for running, for various things. If you have any questions, leave a comment. Make sure you check out the site.
