Hip Flexor Tightness

Awesome- thanks

Good video, Ser Amir.

I have very tight hip flexors, specifically on the right side, due to an old injury (SI joint and facet joint related). Stretching hip flexors directly helps temporarily but the tightness returns pretty much the next day.

What works for me:

- BB Hip Thrusts (found it via Bret Contreas). Got to be reasonably heavy - I'm currently doing 110x5x5 (holding 3s at the top), my best is 150x5x5 - to release tight hip flexors. It also obviously works the glutes hard.

- Stretch ITB and quads - might seem obvious but I used to not realise how tight my quads and ITBs are!

- Stretch the calves esp the outside which are often neglected. Both my chiro and myotherapist pointed this out to me. I didn't realise they were so tight!

- If you do sumo (I do) - groin stretches.

It's interesting you brought up the transverse abdominus (TA). My chiro brought this up yesterday when I was getting treated. My hip flexor and glute problem on the right returns every now and then due to my pelvis tilting to one side. It comes with heavy lifting, but he reckons my TA aren't active enough to provide stability for the pelvis and spine. I can feel that sometimes when doing reps, towards the end I would forget to fully activate my core. The sets that ended up hurting me definitely have a rep or two in them where I can see myself not fully engaging the core (have them all on videos). My core strength in various exercises appears ok (can do 3x10 superman pushups with 10kg vest, or 2x standing ab wheel rollouts) but it's the activation and concentration for the whole set that is an issue at times.

My chiro recommends clinical pilates for TA work, but I'm rather time poor atm. What do you recommend for activation? I usually do this for core work and rotate through them: ab wheel rollouts, superman pushups, RKC planks, hanging leg raises, Russian twists with KB.

The best plank variation I've seen that covers everything you brought up in the video is the RKC plank, popularised by Pavel the KB guru.

Battler, after I did my back/SI joint, my physio got me to do a lot of TA and glute work. He actually did a live ultrasound on my TA to show how underdeveloped and inactive it was, being a typical desk jockey. After 4 weeks of rehab, the difference under ultrasound was astonishing. Battler - you shouldn't have to activate TA during lifting - the idea is to engrain the motor pattern so it just happens. If you're thinking about it it won't work.

The best TA activation drill is the dead bug. You need to maintain neutral lumbar to ensure you are using TA and not hip flexors/back. Some people advocate pushing your lower back into the floor. Others suggest that this puts your back into flexion and isn't too kind on the discs. I prefer the idea of a putting a towel or similar under the lower back to maintain a natural curvature and pushing your back into this throughout the set - best of both worlds. 3 sets of 5+5 done everyday. TA is an endurance muscle. You need to hammer it daily. Do them with natural conversational breathing, not valsava.

Other good ones to do are bird dogs (which is also a multifidus activation drill - very good if you have had facet joint or SI joint injury, as these muscles typically shut down).

If psoas is tight, it isn't necessarily because it is overactive. It might be because its inactive and weak and can handle the job its being asked to do.

Thanks for the further contributions gp and battler.

I'm going to do the dead bug at work in the boardroom on the table

Dont do deadbugs, the boss will think ur bored and give you more work.