Tight hips

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

My hips are extremely tight and I’m considering taking up Yoga. It is early days, and I’m not knowledgeable about the subject. Please forgive me if my question is out of place.

Basically, I wonder if anyone would be able to tell me what particular muscle, or set of muscles, is impeding progress when I go through a routine I have where I lie supine, and bring one knee towards my chest, and then, with my hands clasped around that knee, gently pull it closer to my chest.

There’s resistance in both sides, apparently deep inside the area where the top of the thigh joins the abdomen. This resistance prevents the thigh I’m pulling on getting close to my chest, and it causes the thigh of my straight leg to rise from the ground.

The reason this mystifies me is that I feel the resistance is in the front of my body rather than the back, yet the way muscles work suggests any tightness ought to be in the lengthening muscles (ie, underneath) rather than those that are shortening (above).

Does anyone know what is likely to be going on here?

Any suggestions as to what specific Yoga asanas might help me with my specific problem would be welcome, although I appreciate I can’t isolate my hips from the rest of my body.

#2

Reclining Pigeon is a great one to start with - as your hips get a little looser I would suggest Regular Pigeon and finally double Pigeon as you get looser. Some days are better than others…

#3

Thanks. That’s very helpful. I can certainly do Reclining Pigeon, and it’s good to have the others to look forward to. It’s hard work, though. It feels like my hips don’t want to shift. I have to keep reminding myself they weren’t always this tight.

#4

You can also do butterfly. Feet together and hands interlocked holding your feets, then press elbows against knees for some seconds and after this press knees down as you straighten your spine, you can also for more stretch take the elbows and press a little extra on your knees. Maybe you need to bend little forward to be able to press down them more. but dont press to hard just a mild press so that you can feel the stretch. IF it however feels good and no pain you might press more, just be careful so if it feels uncomfortable either you press to hard or other muscles needs to be loosen first as there should be balance for all muscles to work as they are supposed.

#5

Also if you do the pigeon only there might be some problem as you need balance. Actually you need to stretch frontal as well as backside of the legs. Otherwise you might create another new problem.

are you able at all to sit on your legs and feet?

#6

That’s the strange thing. I’m able to sit on my legs and feet easily. I can even sit on the floor in between my legs and feet. But I can’t sit cross legged without great difficulty. I have two brothers. One has been doing yoga for years and has amazingly flexible hips; the other has never done yoga and has hips tighter than mine!

#7

Then i guess your brother is more than qualified to help you with some postures. Some people have stiff muscles somewhere and less stiff at other parts i knew one guy heavy overweight that could sit on his legs easily, when i started with yoga i got severe pain inside my knees when sitting like that, but rest of my body was more flexible than average joe.

#8

He does Astanga Yoga, and his suggestion is lengthy sessions several times a week. I’m not sure I’m up for that.

#9

Hi dod,
What you described sounds like Wind Releasing pose. A couple things are going on in that pose. On the bend knee side, the resistance is coming from the inner groin area, and some from the lower back on the same side. Do you get the same tightness in happy baby pose? On the straight leg side, the resistance is definitely the hip flexor (iliopsoas), which is chronically tight in many people. You can do the same pose with that leg slightly bent at the knee with the sole of the foot on the floor. You can also replicate a stretch to that region with a lunge with the back knee on the floor, hands on the front thigh (anjaneyasana variation).

#10

Yes, it is Wimd Releasing pose - I didn’t know the name, but I’ve just looked it up. I don’t have the same problem with Happy Baby Pose. It only happens when my knees come towards my chest. It’s the resistance you talk of in the inner groin area that puzzles me. What muscle is this?

The Pigeon pose seems to target the same area. It’s amazing how tight I am in there.

#11

You can do it once to twice a week and benefit from it, the side effect would be that you want do it more often. If you only do some postures the problem could move to spine or other areas.

#12

I take your point. I appreciate I can’t isolate my hips from the rest of me; but these tight hips weren’t always the case. They arrived overnight about three years ago after a harrowing experience climbing a mountain. I overreached myself physically and emotionally. I think the muscles of my hips reacted by tightening so I couldn’t overdo things again in the same way. The trouble is, they are still 'reacting! So I feel a certain justification in approaching them separately because that was how they reacted.

#13

You can try these postures alone but if problem moves to another part you should do yoga in a complete way. Thing is your hip became stiff to protect other areas or due to exhaustion in other muscles, so they compensated for this and got stuck. If i were you and had some yogastudio close i would take 5 classes once a week if time is a problem. You will then know your body and which part is stiff and which postures actually works for the stiff muscles you have. See it as rehab. I hope you could spend those 5 times thn after this you would have more knowledge ,in between if doing it once a week you could do some of the postures that attack some of those stiff muscles at home.

I dont know your age but when getting older it might get worse and then its to late so fix it ,so better to do it now instead of being afterwise when its to late.

#14

Yes, I agree.