Relationship Between Body Size & Flexibility

Although some people seem to be naturally more flexible than others, most people can develop flexibility by performing regular exercises designed to help bodies become more limber. No matter what your body size, you can increase your own flexibility with a daily stretching and exercise routine. Nevertheless, certain factors related to size, such as joint pain due to obesity, can inhibit your flexibility initially and prevent you from performing certain activities.

Flexibility and Movement

Body flexibility involves joints, muscles and various connective tissues. People who lead sedentary lifestyles usually aren’t very flexible because they simply don’t move their bodies very often. Joints get stiff and muscles become tight without regular movement, and inactivity can lead to chemical changes in surrounding connective tissue that restrict flexibility, according to Brad Appleton for CM Crossroads. Also, a sedentary lifestyle often leads to weight gain and obesity, which further taxes and inhibits joints, muscles and connective tissues. In this way, body size affects flexibility, but even obese individuals can increase their flexibility with regular stretching exercises.

Exercises to Help Loosen a Stiff Knee

Arthritis or another medical condition could be the cause of a stiff knee. Overuse of the joints and muscles in your knee can also cause stiffness. Strengthening your hamstrings, quadriceps and other knee-supporting muscles protects your knees from stress and the shock of impact, according to American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Stretching your muscles improves flexibility, which can prevent stiffness and injury.

Straight Leg Lift

Begin the straight leg lift by lying on your back with your right leg straight and your left leg bent at the knee with your foot flat on the floor. Slowly lift your right leg about a foot off the floor while tightening your thigh muscles. Hold the position for three to five seconds, slowly lower your leg to the floor and repeat the lift. Switch to your left leg while your right leg is bent.

How to Do a Full Split Without Hurting Yourself

You do the splits by extending one leg forward, while extending the other leg backward and lowering your pelvis to the floor. The splits require flexibility in the quads and hamstrings as well as the hip flexors and buttocks. If you have issues with flexibility, you may not be able to do splits from a standing position, or be able to touch the pelvis to the floor without hurting yourself. You can still do a full split by starting on the floor and using props to help your body ease into the position.

Step 1

Warm up with at least 5 minutes of aerobic exercise before doing the splits. Alternatively, do your splits at the end of your workout, when your muscles are completely warmed up.

Define Isostatic Stretching

Isostatic stretching can increase your flexibility. Photo Credit Creatas Images/Creatas/Getty Images

Isostatic stretching, also known as isometric stretching, is an effective way to increase flexibility and elongate your muscles. Isostatic stretching combines a simultaneous stretch and contraction of the muscle, but without movement. This manipulates your body into allowing the muscle to stretch beyond its normal limits.

How To

To begin, get into the stretching position for the muscle you want to focus on. For example, a calf stretch would have you in a lunging position while facing a wall. Next, contract the stretching muscle through an isometric contraction for seven to 15 seconds. For the calf stretch, this might look like you are trying to push through the wall. Relax the contraction, then hold the stretch for another 20 seconds. At this point, you may be able to move your muscle beyond the point of stretch you reached before contracting.

Exercises to Strengthen the Achilles Tendon

Overview

Like many exercise related injuries, Achilles tendinitis, or pain in the Achilles tendon at the back of the ankle, typically results from overuse and repetitive stress. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons says that a sudden increase in your running distance or exercising with tight calf muscles that haven’t had a chance to warm up can also cause the condition. Stretching and strengthening the calf muscles are ways to regain normal functioning.

Stretching Exercises

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recommends beginning your recovery with one-leg calf stretches by placing your hands on a wall keeping one leg straight behind you and the other bent. Keeping your back heel on the floor, lean your hips forward, stretching the back calf muscle. Keep both legs back for a two-leg stretch presented by Vivian Grisogono in “Sport Injuries-A Self-Help Guide.” Use the edge of a step or a 2-inch high block for another two-leg calf stretch; with just your toes on the stair or block, drop your heels below the step and hold for a count of 10.

How to Stretch Ligaments & Tendons

Stretching your ligaments and tendons is a good idea for expanding your overall flexibility. However, since your ligaments and tendons are responsible for holding your bones together, too much stretching is a bad thing. Pulls, strains and tears take a very long time to heal, so keep that in mind when trying stretches for the first time. Don't push yourself too hard and take it slow and easy to prevent injury.

Step 1

Sit on the floor and bend your knees outward so that the soles of your feet touch. Lean forward and hold onto your feet. Bend at your waist, not your back. Hold for three seconds.

Dynamic & Static Stretching Exercises

Stretching is an important part of any fitness program. Before physical activity or any kind of sporting event, it loosens muscles, allows for better movement and reduces your risk of injury. Incorporate the two types of stretches -- dynamic and static -- into your regular workout. Dynamic stretches involve slow and controlled movements through a complete range of motion, and should be specific to the exercise you are about to do. Static stretches apply force to a muscle and are held for 15 to 30 seconds at a time.

General Information

The three components to an overall fitness program are cardiovascular or aerobic activity, strength training and flexibility training -- or stretching. The American Council on Exercise recommends that a fitness program include 30 minutes of stretching three times a week. Stretch before and after physical activity to minimize injury and soreness. Before stretching for any reason, warm up your muscles for five to 10 minutes to prevent injury. A short walk while swinging your arms can work as a warmup.

Heart Rate After Stretching

Stretching is an integral part of your fitness routine. Proper flexibility and range of motion has many benefits to daily life and athletic performance. There are a few different types of stretching, all of which can affect heart rate differently. When you are able to understand how your body is reacting to your activities, you can help push yourself in the right direction to a greater extent.

The Heart: Our Lifeline

Your heart is crucial to success in fitness and health. The heart has the toughest job among all working muscles in the human body. Twenty-four hour a day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year for life, the heart must contract and relax. Your heart provides oxygen and nutrients via the blood to all parts of the body. As you push your body with greater physical demands, your heart must work harder to provide the necessary oxygen and nutrients to your working muscles to get the job done. Even at night when you are sleeping, the heart continues to work, but at a lower intensity --- just enough to keep you alive and allow your body to recuperate before the next day.

What Are Two Types of Stretches That Are Considered Safe

There are different types of flexibility training that helps improve your range of motion and relieve muscle and tissue tension. Michael Clark, CEO of the National Academy of Sports Medicine, recommends static and dynamic flexibility as two of the safest methods of stretching. However, you should perform each of these methods at certain times of your workouts to minimize the risk of injury.

Static Flexibility

Static flexibility is stretching one muscle or joint for a duration of time, usually about 30 seconds, according to Clark. This method relaxes the muscles by reducing the amount of neural stimulation which also lengthens any tightness in the muscles and tissues. You should perform static flexibility after your workout, not before, to cool down and relax your body. A sample static stretch would be the kneeling hip flexor stretch where you kneel on your right leg and place your left leg in front of you bent at 90 degrees. Shift your weight forward, and tighten your right butt to stretch your right hip flexors for 30 seconds.

Examples of Flexibility Exercises

Flexibility refers to the range of motion in a muscle or joint that can help you improve movement and athletic performance. Different types of stretching exercises produce various results in how you move and perform. Some types relax your mind and body while others prepare you for movement. The National Academy of Sports Medicine recommends that you do flexibility training before and after your workout.

Self-myofascial Release

Self-myofascial release is the process of removing tissue adhesions and trigger points from your muscles and joints that cause pain and stiffness. Use a foam roller, a massage stick or your own fingers and thumbs to reduce or remove the adhesions. With a foam roller, roll along the length of your spine by sitting on top of the roller with your feet on the ground. Cross your arms over your chest and slowly walk your feel along the ground forward as you roll up your spine toward your neck. Breathe deeply as you massage along your back. Roll as long as you need to reduce the tenderness.

How Long to Hold Stretches?

Stretching elongates your muscles, increasing your flexibility. Increased flexibility gives you a wider range of motion between your joints. Gaining this added flexibility takes time. Even stretching every day, however, will not give you this benefit unless you perform stretches correctly and hold them for the correct amount of time. Holding them for too short a period defeats the purpose and holding them too long increases your chances of injury.

Stretching Types

Stretching falls into seven main categories. These include static, activity, dynamic, passive, isometric, ballistic and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. The most familiar type is static stretching, which requires holding your body still for a set period to elongate the muscle. Active stretching uses a move and hold combination using only the stretched muscle to hold your body position. Dynamic stretching uses a constant series of movements to lengthen the muscle. Passive stretching requires an outside force to move your body and stretch your muscles. Isometric stretching belongs to the static group, but instead of just holding a position, you contract the stretched muscle to increase the stretched effectiveness. PNF combines isometric and passive stretching. When doing ballistic stretching, avoid the bouncing motion, which increases the chances of injury.

Exercises That Stretch the Achilles Tendon, Heel & Calf

The back of your lower leg is a complex muscle group that requires regular stretching exercises, especially if you participate in a sport that requires a lot of running. The repetitive resistance placed upon calf muscles with each step will lead to tightness in your ankles and calves without regular flexibility training. Tight calf and ankle muscles can result in poor sports performance, injuries, pain and stiffness. The sports medicine website Physio Advisor recommends that you hold calf stretches for about 15 seconds and repeat three sets of 4 repetitions daily.

Calf Stretch

This exercise is called the “best stretch for the calf muscles” by Dr. Stephen Pribut on his Running Injuries website. Stand about 3 feet away from a wall with the leg you wish to stretch behind you and your other leg about 2 feet in front of your rear foot. Reach out and place both hands on the wall while bending your front leg, at the same time keeping your back leg as straight as possible. You will feel a pull in your Achilles tendon, heel and calf. Repeat with both legs for your six to eight repetitions.

What Is Slow-Sustained Stretching?

Slow, sustained stretching like the poses involved in Hatha yoga strengthen your muscles, ligaments and tendons. Some stretches isometrically tone your muscles; and all slow stretches are designed to lengthen your muscles which can improve flexibility, allow greater freedom of movement and improve posture.

Static Stretches

Slow-sustained stretching is better known as static stretching. When you do a static stretch, you hold a muscle in a lengthened position for an extended period of time. Static stretches are best performed after a cardio workout when your muscles are already warmed up. Dynamic stretches should be performed before sports and exercise sessions to get your body acclimated to movement pattern. These stretches move your body through a full range of motion.

Best Time to Stretch

Static stretches are best performed post-workout. You should hold each stretch for a minimum of 10 seconds for the best effect. The overall goal with this stretching method is to keep the muscles elongated and soreness to a minimum, which speeds up your recovery between workouts and prevents the muscle tightness that may inhibit full range of motion in subsequent workouts. Not being able to move through a full range of motion increases your risk for muscle strains and other connective tissue injuries.

How to Keep Your Legs Straight While Doing Splits

Doing splits with one leg in front of you and one leg behind you requires flexibility in two major muscle groups. For the front leg, the hamstrings on the back of the leg are stretched in the splits. For the back leg, the splits challenge the hip flexors on the front of the hip.

Potential Problems

For most people trying to do splits, the problem leg is the back leg. Because most people spent a considerable amount of time sitting down, their hip flexors become shortened. Short hip flexors make it difficult to descend all the way to the floor in a split and will cause you to bend your back leg. Stretching the hip flexors is the most effective way to be able to keep your legs straight in splits.

Low-Impact Workouts for the Knees and Leg Strength

It may seem logical to avoid exercise entirely when you suffer from knee pain. However, low-impact strength and flexibility training can help increase the muscle around the knee joint, which can reduce pain and reduce your risk of further injury. Strengthening and stretching both the quadriceps and hamstring muscles are necessary for healthy knees and improving leg strength.

Quadriceps Exercises

The quadriceps consist of four different muscles that work to extend the knee joint. Knee pain and injuries are often a result of the vastus medialis being weaker than the vastus lateralis causing the patella to become displaced. This can be prevented and corrected by performing leg extension exercises throughout their complete range of motion. The vastus medialis becomes activated during the last 20 to 30 degrees of extension exercises such as leg extensions and leg press, notes ExRX.net.

List of the Best Internal Hip Rotation Stretches

Overview

Gentle stretching improves your circulation, range of motion and flexibility. There are many muscles involved in moving your hips, including your glutes, hip flexors and adductors. If your hip muscles are tight, they can contribute to back pain. Some easy stretches will help you loosen the muscles in this area. By incorporating easy stretching into you daily routine, you'll loosen up your hips over time.

Supine Internal Rotation Stretch

Lie on your back on a firm surface, such as the floor. Bend both knees. Separate your feet wider than hip width. Keep your left knee pointing up to the ceiling. Drop your right knee inward and toward the floor. Your right knee should point toward your left leg. Hold your knee down for a slow, 30-second count. Slowly bring your right knee back up. Repeat with the other leg. Go back and forth slowly between the legs eight to 12 times to loosen the hips. Take slow, deep breaths and with each repetition try to bring your knee a little closer to the floor. If lying on your back is not a good option, you can also do this stretch while sitting on the floor.

Most Effective Stretches for Flexibility

The most effective stretches include a range of techniques and body regions for better overall flexibility. Flexibility helps protect you from injury by keeping muscles limber and joints supple enough to achieve fuller ranges of motion, according to the Human Performance Resource Center. Choose between the different stretching times for the most effective stretch suiting your goals. Stretching at least twice a week will help improve your flexibility and prevent injury. To maintain flexibility, consider incorporating a 15-minute stretching session into your daily routine.

Static Stretching: Effective for Muscle Lengthening

Static stretching includes holding a stretch for a specific amount of time, generally between 15 and 60 seconds, which allows the muscle to stretch before release. Static stretching can help elongate muscles and the fibers comprising them, making this an effective stretch post workout or to increase flexibility when you're rehabilitating a muscle. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology recommends that you begin static stretching with your back, then your upper body and then move onto your lower body. After stretching the back and external obliques, move onto the neck, forearms, wrists and triceps. Stretch the chest, buttocks and groin area before moving into the thighs, calves and shins. Finish by stretching your hamstrings and instep.

Flexibility Circuit Training

Circuit training is not just for lifting weights in the gym. You can create your own tailored flexibility training circuit that hits all of the major muscle groups. Perform the circuit once after cardio or strength training to stretch your muscles or several times in a row for a flexibility training session.

Importance of Flexibility Training

The American Council on Exercise stresses that although most of the exercise spotlight is placed on strength training and cardio, there's actually three major components to a well-balanced fitness program. Flexibility training is the third crucial component that is often overlooked. According to ACE, flexibility training is important because it improves your muscle and joint range of motion, relieves muscle soreness and reduces your risk of injury. ACE recommends spending at least 30 minutes, three times per week on flexibility training. But if you're in a time crunch, use circuit training to build a flexibility routine that you can perform in a shorter amount of time.

How to Increase Flexibility in One Month

It's amazing what you can accomplish on short notice when you feel inspired. If you're anxious to make some serious flexibility gains -- and you've set a 30-day deadline for yourself to get the job done -- you just need a plan, a personal commitment and a big dose of diligence. Carve out just 15 to 20 minutes a day for gentle stretching and, after a month's time, you'll discover you're more flexible than you've been in years.

Leg Loosening

Your quads -- those big muscles on the fronts of your thighs -- are the workhorses of your legs. But it's the muscles at the back of your legs -- your hamstrings and calves -- that tend to shorten with inactivity. Stretching those posterior leg muscles is key to boosting flexibility. Standing with your feet together or hip-width apart, start bending slowly forward from your hips. Place your hands on the fronts of your legs and slide them down the legs as you continue hinging forward. When you've gone as far as you can, spend up to 30 seconds breathing normally and getting comfortable with the stretch. Then slowly -- with a flat back -- begin to straighten to a standing position. Repeat the exercise three times. Aim to increase the stretch of the hamstrings and calf muscles slowly, incrementally, every day. Never push past normal discomfort into the pain zone.

Increase Your Flexibility and Improve Your Life

The simple act of stretching does a lot more than make you limber. It may help prevent injuries or even illness—all it takes is 10 easy minutes a day.

Why Does Flexibility Matter?

You’ve managed to make it to Spinning class (for the second time this week!), but as soon as the instructor starts the cooldown, you head for the door. Hold it right there. Turns out, stretching is just as important as getting on the bike in the first place.

Although countless studies have shown how beneficial exercise is for your body and mind (it may do everything from reducing the risk of some cancers to helping improve memory), less attention has been paid to flexibility. But doctors and physical therapists agree that it’s a vital part of keeping your body fit and able. “Flexibility is the third pillar of fitness, next to cardiovascular conditioning and strength training,” says David Geier, the director of sports medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, in Charleston, and a spokesperson for the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine. In fact, flexibility can help your body reach its optimum fitness level, may play a role in injury prevention, and can even contribute to staving off conditions like arthritis and more serious illnesses.

How can I help myself when I have hip pain?

Back to Hip pain

There are several things you can try if you have hip pain. These include using painkillers, exercising and reducing the strain on your hip.

Painkillers

Simple painkillers such as paracetamol (an analgesic) may help to ease pain. It’s best to take them before the pain becomes very bad, but you shouldn’t take them more often than every four hours or more than eight in 24 hours.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen, which you can buy at chemists and supermarkets, can also help.

You can use painkillers and NSAIDs for a short course of treatment of about a week to 10 days. If they’ve not helped after this time then they’re unlikely to and you should see your doctor. However, if they do help but the pain returns when you stop taking them, you could try another short course. You can also try rubbing anti-inflammatory creams or gels onto affected areas.

How to Ease Hip Pain

The hip is the largest joint in the human body. It supports most of the body's weight and is key to maintaining balance. Because the hip joint and hip region are so crucial to movement, arthritis and bursitis in the area can be especially painful. Chronic hip pain is common as the body ages, but there are various exercises and lifestyle changes you can introduce to treat a painful hip. Follow these steps to help reduce your hip pain. 

Part 1 Making Lifestyle Changes

1. Get a diagnosis before anything else. It is really important to know what is causing your pain. See a doctor before you start doing any exercises or taking any medication. There are many reasons your hip could be in pain, including arthritis, bursitis, or an injury you've got while playing a sport. Always ask your doctor what you should and should not be doing, given the cause of your hip pain.

Home Remedies for Hip Pain

Is your hip aching? Try these simple, helpful ways to ease hip pain and get back to living.

You may have been born with two left feet, but when your hip pain acts up, you can relieve the ache the same way dancers do. When members of the Washington Ballet have hip pain, they use a home remedy called the RICE method — this stands for rest, ice, compression, and elevation — to relieve the pain and get back to their art form.

Amy Humphrey, DPT, a physical therapist and spokesperson for the American Physical Therapy Association, works with the Washington Ballet and advises dancers to use home remedies such as RICE when hip pain sidelines them.

10 Ways to Relieve Daily Hip Pain

When you have daily pain in your hip from arthritis (the loss of protective cushioning in the joint) or bursitis (inflammation of the joint lining), it can make doing everything from walking to climbing stairs to bending over a chore. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are 10 things you can do to better manage your hip pain.

Start Your Day With Exercise

Doing the bridge exercise in the morning gets your muscles working, activated, and engaged and will help support you the rest of the day, says Humphrey. Lie on your back with your legs bent and your feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart. Press down through your ankles and raise your buttocks off the floor while you tighten your abdominal muscles. Keep your knees aligned with your ankles and aim for a straight line from knees to shoulders, being sure not to arch your back; hold this position for three to five seconds and then slowly lower your buttocks back to the floor. Start with one set of 10 and build up to two or three sets.

 Cool Inflammation With Ice

Icing a joint that’s inflamed because of arthritis or bursitis can lower inflammation and help with hip pain. “If it’s very painful, I sometimes tell patients to ice four or five times daily for about 10 to 15 minutes,” says Amy Humphrey, DPT, a physical therapist at Body Dynamics, Inc. in Arlington, Va. Use an ice pack, wrap a towel around it, and put it where you feel the pain.

10 Minutes to a Flexible Body

Physical therapist and Olympic trainer Bob Cooley shares a 10-minute routine that will lengthen and elasticize your muscles. From his book The Genius of Flexibility.

Why aren’t people as flexible as they want to be? Is it that a handful of fortunate people are simply born flexible, while most of us are doomed to live the life of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz — perpetually tight, stiff, creaky, and getting worse with age? What is that secret something flexible people just naturally do when they stretch, that special knowledge that’s so obvious to them yet remains a mystery to the rest of us? What’s happening inside of them that is somehow not happening inside most of us?

Give Me Ten Minutes!

Give me just ten minutes. That’s all I need to show you that you can be more flexible than you ever imagined. What I am about to teach you is not something you already know. It is something completely new, something that you’ve never been told before.

How to Get More Flexible for Yoga

From wheel pose and back bends to handstands and shoulder stands, many advanced yoga asanas are designed to improve flexibility and utilize the length and stretch in the muscles. For many people, those are the poses that present the greatest challenge, as they require more extensive preparation and skill. If you find that flexibility is your weak point in yoga, here are some easy tips to help make your muscles longer and leaner.

Make a Simple Stretch Routine

Make a list of the tightest areas of your body, especially the places that feel strained during yoga. Dedicate time out of class to focus on stretching these specific trouble spots. Write down all the stretches you need and put the list somewhere obvious, like the refrigerator or next to the television. This way, you’ll see it often and be reminded to stretch—the most important part of flexibility training is consistency.

6 Stretches for a Lean, Limber Body

Improve your flexibility with 6 all-new stretches that target your tightest muscles.

Stretch for Greater Flexibility

Still not getting the results you want from your exercise routine? Blame tight muscles, says Ashley Borden, a celebrity trainer based in Los Angeles. "When one muscle group, like your quads, is stiff, that prevents others, like your glutes, from firing correctly," she explains. End result: compromised performance (and calorie-burning ability), not to mention an increased risk of injury.

Old-school static stretches, where you bend and hold for what seems like an eternity, aren't necessarily the most effective approach to increase your flexibility. Borden swears instead by her "Stretch and Fire" method, which she uses to teach clients like Mandy Moore. Based on a principle called Active-Isolated Technique, it involves contracting one muscle group while stretching the other. This triggers a muscular reflex that will increase your range of motion and deepen the stretch. Best of all, her workout — which targets most women's tightest muscles — takes just minutes a day.

Getting An Elite Gymnast’s Hips More Flexible By Not Stretching (Part 1) – From Clinic To Practice #3

Get ready for an awesome case study. Last week I had a junior elite gymnast travel out to get an evaluation, and it turned out to be a fantastic 2 hour eval and treat. Both her and her mom were great, and after they gave me permission to write-up a case study about her. I wanted to share this case because there were some VERY important training concepts related to flexibility methods and injuries that the gymnastics community can really benefit from thinking about. I will explain more, but remember you can see/hear this entire 2 hour mobility lecture live at our two Gymnastics rEvolution Seminars coming up. We were able to get her “inflexible” shoulders, hips, and splits better quickly without stretching at all.  The left is a few before shots, the right after (more below)

Here is the short background story. This gymnast’s mother contacted me saying that her daughter has missed a ton of practice/competition time over a few years due to struggling with many different injuries. She has always had “tight hips” and “tight shoulders” which significantly decreases her performance. She aggressively stretches every day and often has to sit in her splits for minutes before they slowly creep lower to the ground. Despite all of her dedication to daily stretching, she continues to be very frustrated with her split mobility, leap angles, jumps, Tkachevs, and Yurchenko. In the last year she has been dealing with

A More Flexible You in 5 Minutes

Yoga for stretching

Treat your body to this stretch-you-all-over mini-routine from yoga instructor and DVD star Seane Corn, who teaches at Exhale at Sacred Movement in Venice, California. Hold each pose for 3 to 8 breaths.

Triangle

Stretches hamstrings and muscles that support spine, boosts mobility in shoulders

Step feet 5 feet apart, turn left foot out, right foot slightly in. Inhale, raise arms parallel to floor. Exhale, hinge at left hip, rotate so left torso comes down over left leg; rest left hand on lower leg and reach right hand straight up from shoulder. Hold, return to start, repeat on other side.

Wide-leg standing twist

Stretches hamstrings, increases spine flexibility, improves mobility in shoulders

8 Tips To Get More Flexible, Even When You Think You Can't

How you approach your body is important, because you'll probably approach the rest of your life in the same way. Want freedom? Practice moving free. Want to do hard things without a struggle? Practice moving easily, even when things get hard. The same goes for flexibility. If you’re looking to become more flexible in your body and your life, here are eight tips that will make it easier than you ever thought possible.

1. Let go of the idea that stretching makes you flexible.

Most people assume that stretching — in a way that uses muscle to force other muscles to lengthen — leads to flexibility. It doesn’t! The old-fashioned approach of static stretching (holding still while pushing hard into a stretch) has been part of most athletic training regimes for decades.

12 Great Stretches for Tight Hip Flexors

Most people have tight hips, but just because they're tight doesn't mean they need to stay that way. Loosen those hip flexors and open your hips up with 12 of the best hip flexor stretches you can do.

You’ve heard the saying: it’s all in the hips, but for many of us, our hips – or more precisely, our hip flexors – are tight, stiff and inflexible. If you’re an office worker you can probably thank sitting down at your desk 8 or more hours a day for your tight hip flexors. Habitual sitting causes your hip flexors to tighten and shorten – adjustable standing desks, anyone?

Luckily, there is a lot you can do to get those hips nice and flexible again, so whether you want to tear it up on the dance floor, improve your athletic performance or just get better posture – now you can!

How to Gain Flexibility in Your Hips

During routine exercise and a daily work schedule, hips are often overlooked. Unfortunately for people who work at a desk for hours a day, the hip muscles can be extremely tight, causing sciatica, lower back and knee pain. Stretching the piriformis muscle and hip flexors can help relieve tension and pain. The piriformis muscle is a pear shaped muscle that begins at the base of the spine and extends through the sciatic notch to the femur. The piriformis and other hip rotator muscles allow you to turn your legs outward and keep proper hip alignment. They also protect your knees and your back. You can keep these muscles working properly by incorporating hip stretches into your daily routine. See Step 1 below to start learning how to gain flexibility in your hips.

Method 1 Seated Hip Stretch

1. Sit on an exercise mat or soft, carpeted surface. Make sure you are wearing loose-fitting or elastic clothing for these stretches.

How to Become Flexible

You can't become flexible overnight. You need to get in the habit of doing stretching exercises every day. But with patience and time, you'll become more flexible. And you will be amazed at how good you feel. Here are some basic steps in the process.

Method 1 Key aspects of flexibility

1. Take good care of your inner body. Good care of your body includes paying attention to what you eat and ensuring that you are getting adequate nutrition.

• Maintain a healthy diet. Eat more green leafy vegetables and increase your protein and calcium (drinking milk is one easy way to increase your intake of both of these).
• Every morning, eat a good, healthy breakfast.
• Drink plenty of water. Since your body is mostly water, you have to be hydrated.
• The most important thing is to balance everything. If you don't, you will not be completely flexible.

7 WAYS TO IMPROVE FLEXIBILITY

Can't touch your toes? Learn how to work flexibility training into your routine without foregoing strength or size.

If you consider touching your toes as a farfetched fantasy that will never come to fruition, know this: The exercises in your workout combined with nutrition, hydration, and lifestyle choices can have a huge impact on your flexibility. That’s right. You don’t have to set your body in pretzels or bent-over toe-touches for hours a day to will some flexibility into your limbs. 

Improving your bending ability is crucial for more than just preventing injury. In fact, flexibility training is an important aspect of gaining strength and size. The typical lifter spends most of their day outside of the gym hunched forward over a computer further deteriorating any chance at proper posture. Outside of just preventing injury, having better posture helps to show off the muscular physique you worked so hard to build. Proper flexibility also goes hand in hand with full range of motion exercises like squats and deadlifts, which are major muscle builders. Having tight hips and shoulders can inhibit proper form and limit your fitness, so get to work on getting flexible.

Butt-ology 101: How to Enhance Your Gluteal Muscles

Your butt - a.k.a. tush, ass, derriere, caboose, unit, booty, moneymaker, hiney, bum, arse, or fanny. We all have one, so how can you care for it and develop it?

Fun Facts About Your Butt:

• It affects your purchase of underwear, shorts, and jeans.
• Others may notice it when you are shopping at the mall for the aforementioned items.
• You sit on it at some point during the day. Some people do it for hours.
• The primary butt muscle - the gluteus maximus - is the largest muscle in your body.
• Some are small, some wide, some average, some narrow, and some quite large.
• Among others, K.C. and the Sunshine Band and Sir Mix-a-Lot wrote songs about it in 1976 and 1992, respectively. And ZZ Top wanted to be taken downtown to look for it.

4 Simple Gymnastics Drills for Strength and Mobility

Gymnastics strength training provides countless benefits to those willing to commit to the process. By focusing on bodyweight progressions, athletes have the opportunity to increase relative strength, strength endurance, mobility, proprioception, kinesthetic awareness, and more.

Additionally, the intense full-body muscle contractions and significant time spent under tension lead to great gains in hypertrophy, lean muscle mass, and fat loss.

The Road to Gymnastic Success

The greatest benefit from gymnastics strength training is not directly related to either ability or physique, but rather to your mindset and approach. In the fitness industry, just as in life, it is all too common to encounter people who want instant gratification and immediate results.

2 Causes of Hip Pain and How to Treat Them: Sciatica and Piriformis Syndrome

The hip is a major contributor to all core work. In fact, when we first learn to sit up as babies, we rely on our hip muscles rather than the muscles of our trunk to do this. Repetitive motion like cycling, running and squatting can irritate the muscles in and around the pelvis, leading to chronic pain or limitation. Sciatica and piriformis syndrome are two conditions often presenting with similar symptoms. Here is a guide to the difference between the two as well as treatment for each.

Sciatica

Description: Often, when a person complains of hip and back pain, the go-to diagnosis is sciatica. Sciatica is actually a very specific source of pain. The sciatic nerve's origin point is just at the top of the gluteal muscle in the L4 and L5 vertebrae. When inflammation occurs in this area, it can compress the sciatic nerve and send a radiating pain down the back of the leg, typically ending at the knee but potentially carrying all the way to the calf.

What Is a Foam Roller, How Do I Use It, and Why Does It Hurt?

Self-myofascial release, also known as “foam rolling,” has transformed from a once mysterious technique used only by professional athletes, coaches, and therapists to a familiar everyday practice for people at all levels of fitness. Recent information, technology, and affordable products have introduced an increasing array of training and recovery methods to the average person.

Self-myofascial release is a fancy term for self-massage to release muscle tightness or trigger points. This method can be performed with a foam roller, lacrosse ball, Theracane, or your own hands. By applying pressure to specific points on your body you are able to aid in the recovery of muscles and assist in returning them to normal function. Normal function means your muscles are elastic, healthy, and ready to perform at a moment’s notice.

7 Exercises to Maximize Hand, Wrist, and Forearm Strength

It is extremely important not to neglect working your forearms during your exercise routines. The hands, wrists, and forearms should be prioritized while warming up and while working out. Below, I will review and demonstrate several stretches and essential exercises that will allow you to build strong and symmetric forearms.

The Benefits of Forearm and Wrist Exercises

So often, the biceps and triceps are the focal point of upper extremity development, while the forearms and wrists are given minimal attention. But the forearms and wrists allow us to perform the exercises that develop and maximize biceps, triceps, deltoid, chest, and back strength. Therefore, it is imperative that we devote time and energy to optimize the strength of our hands, wrists, and forearms.

Is it possible to get a flexible body being a 30-year-old with a less trained body

No pain, serious gain . When you bounce instead of rubber band, you often will go too far. If the muscle is not ready to go that far (due to rigamortis setting in from your blatant lack of use), then you will either here a “pop” and start crying like a little schoolgirl or just start crying. Either way, if it hurts -- STOP! Learn to listen to your body and understand it takes time to get a flexible body.

Flexibility training should be done at both the warm up and cool down phase of a workout and the benefits of doing so are very rewarding. The improvement in your exercises such as the  full hanging leg raise  and sports alone are enough to justify its inclusion in your exercise routine but when you combine these benefits with the other pluses such as a reduced risk of injury, a reduction in the pain caused by lactic acid build up, better posture and a return of the grace of movement you had as a youth then flexibility training is an absolute must.

Stretching Doesn't Work (the Way You Think It Does)

Does stretching make you more flexible? I know the obvious answer to this question, based on what we’ve all been told about the merits of stretching, is, “Duh! Yes!” But it turns out that might not be the case. But it might be the case. At least a little. But not totally. Okay, let me explain.

Stretch Your Bits or Stretch Your Mind?

I’ve had a few things come up recently that have me rethinking the common stretching belief that goes something like this: stretch tight bits in your body and they will get longer/more flexible/more supple.

Stretch It Out: The Hip Flexors

Imagine not being able to climb stairs, bend over, or even walk  . All pretty essential if you ask us! But that’s what our bodies would be like without our hip flexor muscles. Never heard of ‘em? It’s about time we share why they’re so important, how your desk job might be making them weaker (ah!), and the best ways to stretch them out.

Hips Don’t Lie — The Need-to-Know

Located deep in the front of the hip and connecting the leg, pelvis, and abdomen, the hip flexors— surprise, surprise— flex the hip. But despite being some of the most powerful muscles in our bodies (with a clearly important role), it’s easy to neglect our poor hip flexors— often without even knowing it. It turns out just working at a desk all day (guilty!) can really weaken hip flexors since they tend to shorten up while in a seated position. This tightness disrupts good posture and is a common cause of lower back pain. Weakened hip flexors can also increase the risk of foot, ankle, and knee injuries (especially among runners)  . So be sure to get up, stand up every hour or so! And giving the hip flexors some extra attention is not just about injury prevention. Adding power to workouts, working toward greater flexibility, and getting speedier while running is also, as they say, all in the hips  .

4 Hip Flexor Stretches to Relieve Tight Hips

The most common complaint we hear from our members is "my hips are so tight." The response is always, "Here, try this hip flexor stretch."

Why are everyone's hips so tight?

Take a step back and think about where you spend most of your day. If you're a young athlete, you probably spend most of your time at school or maybe work or practice and  even a little time at home, if you're lucky. Now think about what position your body is in during those periods. I would bet that you spend most of your day sitting down. You may walk to class or run in practice, but the majority of your day is spent in a seated position.

Flexibility exercises

These flexibility exercises can be done at home to help improve your health and mobility.

Don't worry if you've not done much for a while, these flexibility exercises are gentle and easy to follow.

If you're not very active or not sure how to start, you may want to get the all-clear from a GP before starting.

Wear loose, comfortable clothing and keep some water handy. Build up slowly and aim to gradually increase the repetitions of each exercise over time.

Try to do these exercises at least twice a week and combine them with the other routines in this series to help improve strength, balance and co-ordination.

Exercises to Improve Recovery After Hip Replacement Surgery

​​​​​​​​Begin After You Have Seen Your Surgeon or a Physical Therapist

It is important to exercise after surgery to increase the strength and flexibility in your new hip and to help prevent blood clots. You may feel uncomfortable at first, but exercising will help you to get back to your normal everyday activities sooner.

Your healthcare team may suggest you add some or all of the following exercises to the ones you began at home before surgery. Start doing them only after you have been seen by your surgeon at your first follow-up visit after surgery. Continue the exercises you were doing before surgery . Your healthcare team will give you the elastic loop you need for some of the exercises. They will tell you how often to do the exercises, how many times to repeat each one, and how much force or pressure you can put on your new hip. You will steadily increase the number of times you exercise daily, how often you repeat each exercise, and the amount of pressure.

Tips to Keep Your Hips Strong and Flexible

In this episode of the Outside Health and Fitness podcast we’re talking about your hips and you’ll learn some fantastic body weight and yoga routines for keeping them strong and flexible. In the Way Outside segment we’ll look at an unusual sport that combines brains and brawn kind of a Rocky meets Einstein mash-up. And I’ll wrap up the show with a fitness challenge to keep you motivated this week.

Tips for Your Hips

I recently got a question from a listener named Zanellie. She wrote in and asked “Hey Steve do you have any tips for exercises on the hips?”

Functions of the Hip Flexor

The hip flexor’s main function is to help the hip joints move properly in their full range. The hip flexor helps you draw your leg to your torso, and also helps you move your legs from side to side and backwards.

Improve Your Flexibility and Range of Motion

4 tips for improving your flexibility when you think you can’t improve your flexibility.

One of the most common questions I get asked is; How do I improve my flexibility? I’ve tried everything and no matter what I do I can’t increase my flexibility past a certain point.

Does this sound familiar? Is your flexibility stuck, and nothing you do makes any difference?

If so, don’t panic. This is quite normal. In fact it’s very common with all aspects of physical fitness, not just flexibility. Athletes and sports people often talk about reaching a “plateau,” where one aspect of their fitness seems to get stuck.

Improve Your Squat With 6 At-Home Hip Flexor Mobility Exercises

In any decent gym you will find the basics: squat racks, benches, medicine balls, plyometric boxes, etc. These tools can help you get stronger and produce force. But where are the hurdles, foam rollers, stretch bands and other tools that can help you increase range of motion?

The ability to successfully perform a Squat or Power Clean depends on strength, technique and flexibility. In my work as a sports performance coach, I often see athletes with limited range of motion, which hurts their ability to lift the bar from the floor. They don't have enough hip flexibility to do a deep Squat that maximizes force.

The movements listed below require very little equipment—nothing more than a basic foam roller and a piece of PVC pipe, both of which can be found or created from materials at your local hardware store. All of the exercises can be done in a small space and be used as a warm-up, stretching session or as part of a workout.

Get Better Hip Mobility: 9 Stretches and Exercises

A good hip mobility routine can improve your overall performance, allow you to get into powerful athletic positions and enhance your flexibility, speed and strength.

This particular routine can double as a dynamic warm-up.

Do these nine hip mobility exercises in order. The first time through, hold the peak of the stretch for one to two seconds. The second time through, do the exercises in a dynamic fashion to increase your heart rate and prepare your body for more strenuous activity.

Hip Mobility Stretches and Exercises

Deep Lunge with Twist

• Lunge forward with one leg.
• Place the opposite-side elbow on the ground.
• Once you reach the correct depth, rotate your inside arm vertically.

7 Tips to Increase Hip Flexibility

Tight Hips – A Modern Day Epidemic

One of the biggest complaints my clients present during their sessions is tight hips. With the high number of professional computer jockeys in today’s modern world, the common complaints are limited range of motion in the hips and shoulders, pain in the neck, back, and feet.

Sitting all day, especially at an ergonomically challenging computer set up, creates a shortening in your hip flexors (the muscles along the front of your hip and thigh that pull you down into a chair). These muscles in turn pull your lumbar spine forward, causing tension and stiffness in the low back, bracing in your hips and what are known as dysfunctional movement patterns.