Hips-on-Blocks Glutes Contract-Relax
Hips-on-Blocks Glutes Contract-Relax
Muscle Group Stretched: Hip Flexors
Muscle Group Strengthened: Glutes
Type of Stretch: Static Active
Difficulty: All Levels
Suggested Prerequisites: none
This is one of my all-time favorite active hip flexor stretches (anyone who’s taken class with me online or at Dollhouse here in Minneapolis will be intimately familiar with this because I do it almost every class - it’s THAT good). This is a great strengthener for our glutes helping our bodies learn to engage our glutes to pull our leg into a deeper hip flexor stretch. For those of you looking for flatter splits in the air, or square-er splits on the floor, this drill should be one of your go-tos!
Unlike traditional PNF style contract-relax stretching, we don’t actually stay in the hip flexor stretch the whole time, we only hold the stretch while we’re in the contract portion of the stretch.
How To
Step 1
Start lying on your back and slide a yoga block under your sacrum (the back of your hips). Extend one leg out straight (this is going to be our working leg), and bend the other knee, pulling it in toward your chest. Hug the knee towards your chest as much as you can, hug it in so much that your pelvis starts to tilt backwards and your straight leg floats off of the floor.
Step 2
Keep hugging your bent knee in toward your chest (as much as you can), and keep the straight leg straight (it’s going to want to bend, so make sure you’re engaging your quads to keep it from bending!), then press the straight leg down towards the floor. This should feel like a contraction in the straight leg’s glutes, and a stretch through the front of the hip (in the hip flexors). Don’t let the bent knee float away from your chest, and don’t let the straight leg bend! Keep pressing that leg down with constant tension/force for 10 seconds.
Step 3
After 10 seconds, relax the leg. Go ahead and give it a shake out, or do some bicycle kicks with your legs to give them a break.
Step 4
Return to your starting position with the same knee as before kicked straight out, and the same knee hugged in toward your chest. Repeat the contract-then-relax portion 2 more times, for a total of 3 rounds, then switch legs.
Modifications
Need to make it easier?
Recruit a partner to help hold your bent knee in place as you kick the straight leg away.
Want to make it harder?
Add an extra yoga block under your hips. The extra block helps rotate the hips backwards even more, making it harder to kick the straight leg down towards the floor.
Partially straighten, or completely straighten the leg you’re hugging in toward your chest.
Related Content
Flexopedia: Kneeling Lunge Hip Flexor Contract-Relax (PNF)
Flexopedia: Lunge Knee Taps
