The Answer
Stretch your iliopsoas and quadriceps muscles. These are your hip flexion and knee extension muscles.
The Exercise
Lay on your side. Bend your lower knee forwards towards your chest to keep you from rolling over..
Bend your upper knee backwards, bringing your heel in towards your buttocks. Reach back with your upper hand to grab onto your foot, ankle, sock or shoe. Pull your foot in towards your buttocks.
Try to keep your leg horizontal, not letting your knee rise towards the sky.
If you cannot reach your ankle, use a theraband, rope or belt to loop around your foot and pull in towards your buttocks.
The Stretch
You should feel the stretch in the front of your thigh and/or the front of your hip.
The Duration
Hold for 30 seconds.
The Repetitions
Repeat 3 times on each side, alternating between each leg.
But… Why?
This exercise is important for people who have strong thigh muscles, engage in running/sprinting, play kicking sports, do squatting exercises in the gym or who have an anterior pelvic tilt posture. People who sit a lot also need to do this stretch.
The Area
Do this simple exercise everyday to increase the flexibility in your hips and knees and to improve the posture in your pelvis
The Relief
This exercise will relieve pain in the front of your hip and the front of your knee.
The Injuries
The injuries which would be helped by this stretch include:
The Relaxation
All of the exercises in this program are designed to facilitate stress relief, relaxation and meditation if desired. Take this you-time to allow yourself to unwind while taking long, slow deep breaths throughout the exercise.
The Program
This exercise is part of my daily thirty minute Flexibility & Posture program. Its a balanced, light program which I have designed on the back of successfully prescribing exercises for thousands of patients so far.
You will be able to access the full program here on November 25th 2019.
Sean Flynn Physiotherapy 