Without fail, every time I open the floor to yogis on what ails them, or what areas of their body need attention for class, I always hear at least one person call out the need for hip openers. As a yoga instructor, I often stick with routines that focus on hips, hips, and more hips, sometimes forgetting the creative beauty of yoga flows, and that there are more areas in the body than our hips. At the end of the day, our hips are going to be tight, especially if you sit regularly, walk or run, and workout. Some may be tighter than others due to posture, feelings, or even genetics.
So, as an instructor, while I may be hyper aware that my classes tend to revolve around hips, the fact is that our hips are a powerhouse in our body. Our hips house some incredibly large muscles like our gluteal muscles and many others like our adductor, hip flexor, and iliopsoas muscles. All of these muscles help provide stability in the body. Here you will find a list of yoga poses to help release some tension in each of those muscle groups to truly focus on your hips!
"Openness means no conclusions - simply looking at everything the way it is." - Sadhguru
One thing to keep in mind: As with everything in life, it is all about balance. For tight hips, it is best to keep the balance between strength and flexibility as tight hips are not all bad. As I mentioned above, hips help stabilize, and if you are a powerlifter, for example, you need hips that are tighter in order to stabilize your pelvis and support the weight you are about to press, squat, snatch, or [insert other relevant term here]. As do runners - a stable pelvis helps use the power in the legs and hip flexors to move, and move fast. Of course, if hips are too tight the muscles around the hip shorten, which hinders the deepness of a squat, or the length of a runner's stride.
So, as you practice the postures below, go to your body's edge - the place where you can maintain your breath at an even, steady pace, and where you feel a stretch, but are not gritting your teeth to maintain it, or activating other muscles to do so.
"The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear." - Rumi
1. Supta Kapotasana, Supine Pigeon
Benefits:
Opens the hips.
Releases emotional tension (often held in hips).
Increases external range of motion of the femur in the hip.
Lengthens the hip flexors.
You can do this posture using the wall for support, or without the wall laying on your back. If you do use the wall, the closer you are, the deeper the stretch. As a result, you can find more places to grow in this posture, and enhance the stretch.
How To Get Into the Pose:
Start by laying on your back with your knees bent, and feet firmly planted on your mat (or wall).
Inhale: Cross your right ankle over your left knee, and flex the right foot.
Exhale: Reach your arms to grab behind your left knee, and pull your legs closer to your chest.
If you need something even deeper:
Wall: Move your sit bones closer to the wall, and walk your foot down the wall towards the floor.
Slide the crossed leg down towards the opposite leg hip crease.
Please your right leg, and repeat the steps above using your left leg.
2. Baddha Konasana, Butterfly or Bound Angle Pose
Benefits:
Stretches the inner thighs, groins, and knees.
Compression of the hip.
Decompresses the spine, and opens the thoracolumbar fascia (from the base of the neck to the sacrum).
A time to be introspective - calming and grounding.
How To Get Into the Pose:
Start in a seated position with your legs outstretched. Shift your weight, so that you are comfortable, and your sit bones are firmly planted on your mat.
Exhale: Bend your knees and walk your heels towards your sit bones, open your knees to either side of the room, and press the soles of your feet together.
Inhale: With your peace-fingers and thumb around your big toe, or hands around your shins or ankles, lengthen your spine toward the ceiling.
Exhale: Leading with your heart, shift your chest forward and fold towards your toes.
Avoid pressing your knees down towards the floor. Instead, allow the knees to gradually relax down as you focus on releasing the head of the femur towards the floor.
To come out of the pose:
Inhale: Lift up the chest to stack the vertebra over your hips.
Exhale: Place your hands behind you hips.
Inhale: Lean your head and chest back to allow your hips to open, and slowly straighten each leg.
If you need help to ease this posture:
If you need help tilting your pelvis forward, you can sit on the edge of a folded blanket. When you sit on the blanket, ensure that your hips are slightly higher than your knees.
If you have too much tension in your neck to tuck chin to chest, you can use a block and place it on top of your feet, or a bolster across your thighs to rest your head on top.
If you have tightness in your knees and your inner thighs are firing as you hold this pose, you can place block or blankets underneath your knees to allow them to soften and relax.
Variations:
If feet are farther away from the center body, the hamstrings will get more of a stretch.
If the feet are closer to the center body, the adductor muscles will get more of a stretch.
3. Anjaneyasana, Crescent Low Lunge
Benefits:
Opens the front of the body - chest, lungs, shoulders, and neck.
Releases tight hamstrings, quadriceps, and psoas.
Focuses on your breath - Pranayama practice.
Lengthens the hip flexors.
Enhances balance, and improves ankle stability.
Strengthens your knees.
While this pose may seem simple, it offers so many benefits for everyone. This is a great frontal body release, and treats typical lower-body tension and soreness. It is also a really wonderful pose to connect your body, mind, and spirit.
The term "anjaneya" means praise. It is a reference to the monkey god Hanuman using his mother's name, Anjana. The pose resembles someone reaching towards the sky, and the warmth provided by the sun.
There is so much room to grow in this posture, both physically and spiritually. You can start with your hands framing your front foot, and as your hip opens and your balance improves, you can rise to the knee or add the arms above your head, or you can even add a twist, or bind.
How To Get Into the Pose:
Start in downward facing dog, or box pose.
Inhale: Lift and lengthen your right leg toward the sky.
Exhale: Step your right foot between you hands, and lower to your back knee (if not already).
Inhale: With your front knee stacked over your ankle, rise into low lunge, lifting your arms, first to your thigh, and then up to the sky.
With every inhale, continue to lift your fingers and head towards the sky. Focus lengthening your spine by lifting your chest away from your pelvis, and the top of your head away from the base of your neck.
4. Utthan Pristhasana, Lizard Lunge Pose
Benefits:
Opens the hips - groin, hamstring, and hip flexors.
Releases emotional tension.
With a twist, opens the spine and quadriceps, as well.
Strengthens the inner thigh muscles on the front leg.
This is a great outer hip release for all of those muscle attachment points at the greater trochanter, and even the inner thigh as you roll your knee open. This is a great preparatory posture for: Pigeon and Monkey Pose (Full Splits).
How To Get Into the Pose:
Start in downward facing dog.
Inhale: Lift your right leg into three-legged down dog.
Exhale: Plant your right foot at the top of your mat, between your hands.
Inhale: Heel-toe your right foot to the outside of your right hand, and stay on your back toe, or lower down to your knee.
Exhale: fold into the stretch, lowering down to your forearms, your chest, or a block.
For an added twist: Rest into your left hand into your mat, as you press your right hand into the inside of your right knee, and look to the back of the room, over your shoulder.
To bind: Bend your back leg and reach to grab ahold of your ankle, pulling your heel closer towards your body.
To come out of the pose: Come out of the posture the same way you entered - slow and following your breath. When you rise back to your hands, take a few breaths to allow your body to recenter itself to movement.
Inhale: Slowly lift rise back to your hands, and heel-toe your foot back between your hands.
Exhale: Curl back onto your back toes, and firmly plant weight into your hands.
Inhale: Press your right leg back to three-legged downward facing dog, and take any hip circles or movement you may need to release leftover tightness in the hip, and then return to down dog. Repeat on the other side.
5. Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, One-legged King Pigeon Pose
Benefits:
Opens the hips.
Releases emotional tension (often held in hips).
Increases external range of motion of the femur in the hip.
Lengthens the psoas and hip flexors.
Engages your core to keep the hips stable.
This posture taps into opening our lower two chakras - root (grounding, tribal and sense of belonging) and sacral (emotional body, creativity and sensuality) chakras. This opening can be intense due to tightness in these areas from being seated for long periods, as well as blocked relationship and emotional energy. As you sink into this posture, reconnect to your breath and allow every muscle in your body to surrender and let go.
How To Get Into the Pose:
Start in downward facing dog.
Inhale: Lift your right leg into three-legged down dog.
Exhale: Plant your right foot at the top of your mat, between your hands. Heel-toe your right foot to your left wrist, and gently lower your right knee down to the ground. ** Your right shin may or may not be parallel to the short, front side of your mat. Most importantly, your hips will be square and in line with the front or your mat to protect your sacrum, and your right toe will be dorsiflexed toward your shin to protect your ankle and knee.
Inhale: Lengthen the crown of your head toward the ceiling.
Exhale: As you feel ready, fold into the stretch, lowering down to your forearms, your chest, or a block. Find your personal edge as you lower, or stay high in Proud Pigeon.
To come out of the pose: Come out of the posture the same way you entered - slow and following your breath. When you rise back to Proud Pigeon, take a few breaths there to allow your body to recenter itself to movement.
Inhale: Slowly lift your upper body back to proud pigeon.
Exhale: Plant your hands on either side of your shin, and curl back onto your back toes.
Inhale: Press your right leg back to three-legged downward facing dog, and take any hip circle or movement you may need to release leftover tightness in the hip, and then return to down dog. Repeat on the other side.
6. Parivrtta Kumbhakasana, Revolved Plank Pose
Benefits:
Strengthens the arms and wrists.
Lengthens the core.
Releases the IT band and outer hip, mainly the TFL.
Fully strengthens and engages the back leg.
This posture is something that I wish I knew when I was a runner on the cross-country team. The IT band is responsible for keeping your hips and knees stable for movements like running and jumping. The IT band is a thick, fibrous band of fascia that also envelops the quadriceps muscles and tapers into the knee joint capsule. When the tensor fasciae latae (TFL) and gluteus maximus contract, it adds tension to the IT band, which helps to stabilize your knee-to-hip relationship. Of course, with too much use or underuse from one of these muscles can over-stress the IT band, and you may feel some outer knee pain or tension. So yes, this would have been a great posture to have known back in my cross-country running days. For what it is worth, I know now, and I hope this posture helps release some of that hip-knee relationship tension you may be feeling.
How To Get Into the Pose:
Start in downward facing dog.
Inhale: Lift your right leg into three-legged down dog.
Exhale: Bring your right knee across to your left body, and weave your foot through between your left foot and hand as if you were going to open up into Camatkarasana, or Wild Thing Pose.
Inhale: Drop your hips and lengthen the crown of your head toward the ceiling. Dorsiflex your right toes toward your shin.
If you need help to ease this posture:
Bend your right knee towards your left wrist.
Completely drop your hips to the group, which will take some of the weight from your arms and hands.
If you need something even deeper:
Exhale: Look over your right shoulder.
To come out of the pose:
Inhale: Come back to center, if you took a twist.
Exhale: Press the weight firmly back into your hands and lift your hips.
Inhale: Press re-weave your right leg back to three-legged downward facing dog, and take any hip circle or movement you may need to release leftover tightness in the hip, and then return to down dog. Repeat on the other side.
7. Virasana, Hero Pose
Benefits:
Stretches the thighs, knees, and ankles - lengthens the rectus femoris.
Strengthens the arches of the feet.
Lengthens the front of the body from the knee to the head.
Improves digestion and relieves indigestion.
Aids the natural lumbar curve in the lower spine.
Focuses on breath.
How To Get Into the Pose:
Start in box pose with knees and hands firmly placed on the mat.
Inhale: Gently open your feet wider than your hips. ** You can place a rolled towel or folded blanket underneath your ankles, if there is too much tension in your feet.
Exhale: Bring your knees to touch, and slowly lower your hips down to the ground, between your feet. ** You can lower your sit bones to a block between your feet.
Inhale: If you would like to go further, drop down to your forearms, or lower to your back and extend your arms overhead.
** In this posture, focus on keeping you knee pressed down to the ground to lengthen the distance from your hip to your knee in order to truly aid in stretching your quadriceps.
If you need help to ease this posture:
You can place a block between you feet to sit on a block. Additionally, you can add a bolster on top to run perpendicular to your mat.
You can place a blanket underneath your ankles to lessen the weight on your ankles.
You can take this posture one leg at a time, and come into half hero pose.
To come out of the pose:
Inhale: Lift your chest up, first to your forearms, and then to your hands.
Exhale: Plant your hands in front of you, and return to a box pose.
Inhale: Lengthen the spine as the joints stack - shoulders over wrists, and hips over knees.
Repeat on the other side.
8. Parsva Sukhasana, Seated Side Bend Pose
Benefits:
Lengthens the side body from the hip to the finger tips.
Stretches the quadratus lumborum (QL).
Allows the rib cage to open, and the lungs to expand.
A great warm up posture to begin a practice.
Opens the psoas, obliques, lower back, upper back, and chest.
How To Get Into the Pose:
Start in a seated position on your mat - ankles placed, one in front of the other, or a version of lotus.
Inhale: Lift both arms above your head.
Exhale: Lean to your left side, dropping your left arm by your side with your elbow slightly bent.
Inhale: Lift your right arm over your ear to the opposite side, and pull with your arm as you stay rooted to your mat on your sit bones.
** In this posture, focus on your breath - slow and steady. Use your breath to guide your body to open on the inhale (pulling your overhead arm across your body, root your hips down, and pull your ribcage to the right), and exhale sink into the stretch.
To come out of the pose:
Inhale: Lift your torso back to a seated position.
Exhale: Drop your hands by your side, and pull your shoulder blades down and away from your ears.
Repeat on the other side.
I hope you find these postures truly relaxing and grounding. I hope you are able to release tension in your hips, while still finding the balance in your own strength and flexibility. Most importantly, I hope that you find the beauty in your own practice and in your hips (they are a true powerhouse!)
Remember, you are exactly where you are meant to be, so honor your body in its natural state, and connect deep into you body, mind, and spirit as you hold each one of these postures. Enjoy these hip opening postures.
All my light and love, Namaste.
xx,
Jordan
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