With more of us working from home for hours upon end—be it from a desk, makeshift workstation or the couch—ending your nine-to-five with tight and tender hips isn’t uncommon. The same goes for if you spend hours of your day commuting to and from work.
The problem is that all this sedentary behavior can lead to your hip muscles becoming weak and shortened. When this happens, it can result in hip stiffness or an achy feeling around your hips, lower back, and spine.
To help, professional fitness coach Sean Vigue has shared this 12-minute yoga-inspired stretching routine which has one goal in mind: to unlock tight hips. So, if you’re looking for relief from too much sitting, grab a yoga mat and get started with this stretching sequence.
Watch how to do this yoga stretching sequence
As you might have already guessed from the title, Vigue includes a range of hip-opening exercises in this yoga stretch. It includes the likes of a 90/90 hip stretch, which will target your hip flexors, external rotators, and glutes, along with a butterfly stretch, a lunging hip flexor stretch, and the powerful pigeon's pose. He also recommends completing a downward dog and a wide-legged seated forward fold.
“These effective hip-opening stretches will help increase flexibility, reduce stiffness, and enhance overall movement,” Vigue says.
Vigue holds many of these poses for a minute or more and all are examples of either dynamic stretching or static stretching. The former refers to moving through a full range of motion to help increase the flexibility of the muscles and warm them up. While the latter refers to holding a stretched position.
Both have their benefits. As published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science, long-term static stretching can produce a greater range of motion compared to dynamic or ballistic stretching. While a 2024 article published in the Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation journal states that dynamic stretches play a ‘pivotal’ role in injury prevention by preparing the body both physically and mentally for physical activity. This type of stretching can improve athletic performance, too.
What are the benefits of completing hip openers?
“Hip opening poses and stretches are very beneficial as they alleviate tightness, muscle tension, and possible nerve pain,” Alo Moves yoga instructor, Ashley Galvin, says. “They increase flexibility and mobility which is crucial for longevity and reducing the risk of injury.” And research, like this 2021 article published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Health, confirms this.
So, how often should we be performing these hip-opening exercises? According to Galvin: “Hip opening exercises should be performed at least three times per week to begin to see improvement.”
For more ways to hack your hips, try these three moves a personal trainer swears by for reducing stiff hips and boosting flexibility.
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