Knee-Friendly Hip Flexor Stretches

Knee-Friendly Hip Flexor Stretches

My favorite hip flexor stretch is the good ol’ 90 Degree Lunge, but if it’s uncomfortable to have your knees on the ground because you’re practicing on a hard surface, this might not be the best stretch for you. (Note: if this stretch feels uncomfortable because of a previous injury, please work with a PT to find appropriate alternative stretches, don’t just go digging around on the interwebs.)

Option #1 would be to throw a pillow, a folded yoga mat, or a folded towel under your back knee. In may cases that may solve the problem simply by giving your knee some supportive padding.

If padding the back knee doesn’t help, let’s take all the weight out of it completely and try a couple of different hip flexor stretches.

Standing Hip Flexor Stretch: High Lunge

• Stand in a high lunge with your hips high, torso upright, a slight bend in your front knee, and back heel pulling towards the floor (totally fine if your heel doesn’t touch the floor)

• Bring your attention to your hips and pelvis. Keeping both your hips pointing forwards, tuck your tailbone down, trying to point it to the floor until you start to feel a stretch in the hip flexors (blue above) of the back leg

• Push through (squeeze!) the back-leg glute (red above) to help keep your hips pointing straight forward, and don’t let them twist open to the side (second picture). We want both hip bones pointing straight forward like headlights!

Supported Supine Hip Flexor Stretch

• Lie down on the ground, placing either a yoga block or a foam roller under your tailbone (note: tailbone - not low back!) and let your legs lay out straight in front of you

• Tuck one knee into your chest, grabbing it with your hands. As you pull that knee in, feel a stretch in your hip flexors (marked in blue above) of the straight leg as gravity continues to help pull that leg to the floor

BONUS Active Flexibility Supported Supine Hip Flexor Stretch

• Set up lying down on a block/roller just as the previous version, but sneak foot of the leg that you’ll keep out straight under the bottom of a couch, or have a partner come and press their hands down on your bottom foot to hold it in place

• Pull the other leg into your chest until you can start to feel a stretch in your hip flexor (up in your hip crease)

• Keeping your top leg in place (and your bottom leg in place pinned by either the couch or your partner), try and lift your bottom ankle up to ceiling (red arrow above), actively trying to press it into whatever support is holding it in place (the bottom of the couch or your partner’s hands). Hold this active press/squeeze of the bottom leg (which is engaging your hip flexor while it’s in an extended position) for 10 seconds - you should feel this in your hip flexors and quads (shown in red above) as they’re contracting trying to lift your ankle. Then relax.

• Repeat 2-3 more times if you’d like. If you’d like to make this a PNF-style “circuit,” do your active press for 10s, relax for 20s and repeat two more times.

Got Questions? Ask 'em below!

Got questions? Reach out to me on Instagram (@daniwinks) or comment below.