Aim to strengthen your hip flexor muscles to maintain your legs and core free from muscle injuries. Keep reading to learn more about the several exercise options.
The hip flexors are a bunch of muscles situated between your abs and your thighs. These muscles don’t just aid you to flex your hip joint; they’re also a key contributor to your core’s stability, which affects your whole body. With that in mind, it’s necessary to strengthen your hip flexors and keep them in tip-top shape.
Do you already know much about your hip flexor muscles? What exercises are you able to do to strengthen them? We’ll explain these points a little bit further below.
The hip flexor muscles
The psoas muscle and the iliacus muscle are considered the foremost muscles involved within the job of flexing the hip joint. However, other muscles also help with this function and a few experts also consider these as a part of the group of hip flexors.
What muscles are those? The sartorius, the rectus femoris, and the tensor facia latae muscles. All of those are the muscles you need to work on if you ought to strengthen your hip flexors.
How are you able to strengthen your hip flexors?
The hips are one of the vital necessary areas of the body. Your core is in and around your hips, which is made up of varied muscle groups. At your core, your upper body and torso merge together with your lower body. A robust and healthy core and surrounding muscles are essential for a healthy life.
Furthermore, having strong hips allows your body to perform basic movements resembling walking or running. It also reduces the probability of each muscle and bone injuries. So, what are some recommendations to strengthen your hip flexors? Your focus ought to be on doing specific physical exercises.
Supported hip flexes
To perform this exercise, you’ll need to start out by lying in your back on a cushty surface, next to a wall. Bend your hips and knees so that they’re each at 90 degrees, and support the soles of your feet on the wall or one other similar flat surface.
Once you’re in that position, try bringing your knees to your chest, one after the other. Firstly, the appropriate leg, hold it for a number of seconds then work your left leg. To aid you with this movement you may press your leg against your chest together with your hands just under your knee. We recommend doing ten reps on each leg.
Butterfly pose
Sit on the ground within the yoga pose of the butterfly. That is, sit down as in case you were going to cross your legs, but put the soles of your feet against one another. Your knees ought to be as near the ground as possible. Try to maintain your head and back straight and aligned.
Using your hands, grab your ankles and check out to bring your feet in as near your body as you may. This movement will stretch out your hip flexor muscles.
Glute bridge: strengthen your hip flexors
Lie down in your back on a flat surface resembling an exercise mat, and put your soles on the ground together with your knees bent. Once you’re in that position, slowly raise your hips off the ground until you’re in a straight line out of your shoulders to your knees, supporting yourself just together with your shoulders, arms, and feet.
Try to carry the position for a number of seconds, then slowly lower your hips back to the ground. If you are feeling as much as it, do the bridge with support out of your neck too, but watch out not to use an excessive amount of pressure.
Hip abductions
A hip abduction is a movement where your leg moves outwardsaway from the middle of your body. To perform this exercise, that you must lie on one side in your exercise mat, as you may see within the opening photo.
If it’s comfortable, you may bend the underside leg and keep the opposite one reasonably straight. From there, slowly lift the highest knee, away out of your other leg. Focus on controlling the movement. First, do ten reps with one leg, after which change sides and do the opposite leg.
Strengthen your hip flexors
Strengthening the foremost muscles which can be involved with flexing the hip joints is essential on your body’s general stability relating to movement. If these muscles aren’t strong and supple, other muscles will step in to assist, and the probability of injury will increase.
This is because each muscle group is chargeable for some principal and secondary tasks, and shouldn’t have to succeed in out to provide a deficiency in one other muscle group nearby. To keep your body in tip-top shape, make certain you train and strengthen each different area!
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to make sure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this text was considered reliable and of educational or scientific accuracy.
- Staugaard-Jones, J. A. (2014). Anatomy of exercise and movement. Anatomy of Exercise and Movement.
- Giorno, P., & MartÃnez, L. (2003). Biomechanics of the abdominal muscles and hip flexors. Review and contributions for the interpretation of specific exercises. PubliCE Standard.