Skip to main content

5 Most Effective Yoga Postures to Release Tight Hips

Yoga Postures to release Tight Hips

From an anatomical perspective, the hips are the site of coordination between movement in the back and legs. Our bodies are made to move, when we are waking we are biologically designed to have our muscles active, either by running, walking, standing or squatting.
Or all these movements require fluid hip joints. However, what happens when we spend most of your lives slouched in a chair, either at our desks, in front of the TV, in the car or at a meal? The last 50 years have dramatically changed our lifestyle, due to automation very little physical labor is required causing a predominantly sedentary lifestyle especially in a city like Hong Kong.
This is certainly less energy consuming and more comfortable in the short term but the inactivity is causing our muscles to waste away resulting in long term health ramification for the entire population.
The first sign that you are sitting for too long is that you will feel a tightness in around your hips, this is due to a combination of poor posture where the back is rounded and tight hamstrings pulling on the pelvis.
Here are the most effective yoga poses you can do to reverse the effects of a sedentary lifestyle and bring back better mobility and flexibility around your hips.
Take full and deep breaths throughout your individual yoga practice, hold each pose for one minute as you start and repeat the entire sequence 3 times for optimal results.

Goddess

Start by strengthening your legs and glutes as you ground down in this wide squat. Hold the pose to ensure there is a muscular layer of protection around your hips before any deep stretching.

Crescent Lunge

Keep the back leg strong to stabilize the pose as you explore how comfortable you are to put weight on your hip flexors when you feel ready gently arch your back for a deeper and more balanced stretch.

Staff

It looks deceivingly simple but when practiced in correct alignment this pose helps to lengthen your hamstrings, engages your core and provides a 90-degree flexion about the hips to retrains the body how to sit and thereby dramatically improves posture.

Pigeon

This asymmetrical pose is a quintessential deep stretch to the hips, glutes and piriformis muscle, it will help you ascertain which side feels tighter, breathe deeply and close your eyes to direct more healing energy to the side that needs it more.

Butterfly

This hip opening and inner thigh stretch are excellent to release lower back compression. On a psychological level, it helps to release anger and improves patience, learning to be calm and relaxed in this pose will facilitate a deeper stretch.
If you experience hip pain and generally don’t exercise it is recommended that you start with a beginners sequence to bring an evenness in your strength and flexibility back into the body. If you have had a hip injury or despite being active you suffer hip pain you would see the most benefit from personalized attention in private yoga classes to correct any misalignments around the hips and pelvic girdle.
Psychosomatically the hips are the seat of suppressed emotions, if you find that the tension persists despite stretching, it may be time to look a bit deeper to the emotional baggage you are holding and carefully release what is energetically holding you back through breathing and meditation.
Labels:
Location: Hong Kong

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yoga at Home: A Beginner’s Guide

  Yoga at home   offers a rejuvenating way to achieve inner peace and holistic well-being. In this blog, we will explore the incredible benefits of practicing yoga at home, guiding you through a transformative journey toward a healthier mind, body, and spirit. How to do Yoga at home   Our aim at Inspire Yoga is to give you the confidence to create a self-practice, where you can start your day by rolling out a yoga mat in the comfort of your own home and have the know-how of what you need, a gentle stretch, an energizing workout or a calming practice, all depending on the day and being mindful to what your body is asking for. Most of the time we push our body and let our mind be in charge of what needs to take place, yoga is the time of listening to what the body needs, to understand where the areas of tension and stiffness are and how to systematically and compassionately release the areas that are feeling stuck, so you enjoy a greater freedom of movement and an increased...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Basics of Ayurveda

Ayurveda is the ancient science of Indian medicine. It seeks to bring longevity and a greater quality of life by delving into health and healing. Ayurveda determines the wholesomeness of one’s life by examining the harmony in which one lives with themselves and their surroundings. Any ailments on the physical plane is said to be rooted on the level of the mind, thus a healthy body starts with a happy mind. Ayurveda classifies each body according 3 categories (doshas), our bodies will have characteristics that are predominant in at least one of these doshas. The aim here is to know our bodies better and thus know what to avoid and how to nurture it. If we are out of balance, there is too much of one element dominating leading to poor health. The focus is to bring everything into balance, in a holistic fashion. Vata This is the first dosha, it relates to the elements of space and air. Its physical qualities are dry, cold, light and irregular. People who are vata tend to be ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yoga Asana and Awareness

To practice YOGA means to choose to evolve and produce transformations in the being, that will quickly become healthy and purified because of the energies that pass through the body. Even though this passing of the energy is produced, without a proper awareness of the processes that are triggered in our inner universe – when we do our practice – effects on the body, our psyche and mind are much reduced and it takes a longer period of time until energies become visible in the physical plan. The awareness of energies, which are received in our being, will purify by transformations of the body and mind. Out of the whole complex of techniques and procedures that the YOGA system includes, the most well-known are ASANA-s, the body postures. During the practice of ASANA-s we will regard each body posture that we realize as a gate open towards profound spirituality. The practice of ASANA-s must be carried out in a perseverant, effortless and patient way. If the execution of each ASANA will...
Post a Comment
Read more