Yoga for hip opening : If you sit a lot, at desk, or in your car, you probably have ‘tight hips’. I find students tend to want to yank the hips open and this is not the safest approach. Tightness in this area is multi-dimensional, and who you are before beginning is important as well. I plan to teach some safe approaches tomorrow in the first of 6 class series starting with how to be attentive to the feet. The feet will act on the hips, and are actually a mirror of the hips.
This basic info graph shows how chronic sitters get extremely locked in the hip flexors in the front of the body so that these muscles, in constant contraction, shorten and tighten. A reasonable approach therefore is to use your yoga practice to lengthen these hip flexors which would provide a feeling of more ‘opening’. In addition, your glutes, even though you are sitting on them all day, are in effect, underused whereas they are there to help with hip stability. Yoga can help this too, although walking is also good movement.
At the bottom of this info graph there are some useful tips. Even a few moments of yoga throughout your day can help severe tightness from taking control, so get proactive and get up more often even if just to shake your legs and do some foot circles
Rana Waxman is a registered yoga therapist ERYT-500, with 20 years of teaching experience. Rana is a freelance writer and social media expert in addition to leading yoga workshops internationally and teaching alignment focused private and group Yoga Lessons in Hoboken and Jersey City NJ.
