Hip Flexors: Your Hidden Pain?

YHH would like to introduce Lauren from Lauren's Fitness.com . She is going to be a guest poster today. I have personally suffered from scoliosis and have learned my hips are off set. Learning to work through it and over come it is the only option. Lauren gives great in-site into this subject! Read her post below:

My name is Lauren, a personal trainer from Australia and I blog at LaurensFitness.com. I have a degree in Exercise Science and spend most of my time playing professional Volleyball in Europe. You can check out the blog for information on fitness, strength, rehabilitation and nutrition!

Nearly every one of us would have suffered from back pain, or know someone who has had to deal with back pain at some stage in their lives. The fact is that back pain is a hugely common complaint, and we might be missing one big key. Tight hip flexors create back pain, and you might not even know it. The great news is that you don’t have to put up with it.

What Are Your Hip Flexors?

The hip flexors are referring to two muscles, called the Psoas major and the Iliacus. You can see them in the diagram below.

Image source: Wikipedia.

Their primary movement is exactly what their name suggests, they flex the hip. Both of these muscles attach to the top of the femur, the thigh bone. The iliacus originates on your hip bone, however as you can see the Psoas originates on your lower back. Now we can start to see the connection between low back pain and tight hip flexors.

Consider for a moment the nature of our lives. A lot of us sit for long periods of time at the desk. Sitting down put your hip flexors in a shortened position. If you stay in this position for long enough, they basically start to think it’s normal. Your muscle and fascia tissues are very adaptable, and they want to move into that resting position, which means you are left with tight and contracted hip flexors. If you have incorrect posture while you are sitting or standing (which can also be caused by tight hip flexors!), then you are only going to be tighter.

How Do They Cause Back Pain?

Now that you understand how they get so tight, time to understand how they cause so much back pain. As you can see, everything is related to something else, your body is connected through so many avenues, and a chain like effect occurs.

• Consider again your anatomy. If your hip flexors, in particular your Psoas, is tight and contracted it will pull forward on your lower back. This will mean you go into anterior tilt; lordosis…or simply, you stick your butt out way too far.

• The pressure that these muscle cause on your lower back can cause damage and long term injuries to your joints.

• If you are unlucky enough to have one side tighter than the other, then you are putting yourself at risk of scoliosis, among other problems.

• If you hip flexors are tight, your butt will stop firing properly. This is because of reciprocal inhibition, muscles that are opposite each other have this effect. When you glutes are not firing correctly, your movement patterns start to rely on other areas, you overcompensate. You lower back takes up a lot of the slack. Extra pressure = extra injuries.

As you can see, it is a nasty chain!

How To Release Your Hip Flexors:

The positive news is that it is a relatively easy problem to fix. If you tight hip flexors are causing you pain, get them loose and you will experience almost instant results. There are three simple ways you can go about it, and all three ways should be used.

Stretching:

Here is a video explaining how to stretch your hip flexors. It is important that you hold the stretch for quite a long time, until you actually feel some release in your hip flexors. This area is surrounded by thick fascia, and takes a lot more to release.



Myofascial Release:

The fascia is often the main cause of tightness, and often stretching will not be enough. Combine the stretches above with this myofascial release technique, and you will be well on your way to being pain free. Use a tennis ball or a ball of similar size. Find out more about tennis ball therapy and fascia pain.

How to: About 2 cm right from your belly button is the initial place you want to put the ball. Lay flat and gradually raise yourself up of the ground. The higher you go the more stretch and consequently more pressure you put through your Psoas. Repeat this with the ball in the same spot a few times, then move it up and down slightly. Test out each area of the Psoas and find where you are tightest.

Glute Activation:

Reciprocal inhibition was mentioned before, and it works both ways! If you are able to get stronger and more active in your glutes, then you will have much more success in releasing your hip flexors. They will automatically relax, and your stretching will be much more effective. Include glute exercises such as bridges and lunges into your program regularly. These will also provide an active stretch on the hip flexor area. Check out a huge range of bum exercises.

Tight hip flexors can cause a whole range of issues that you don’t need to deal with. They are a constant cause of lower back pain, and if left untreated can cause some serious damage. In this case it is a simple solution, so if your life revolves around sitting at a desk, then regular stretching and glute exercises are a must for lower back health.

Check out the blog at Laurens Fitness for some more free articles and info!