Daily Tip #19 - A Hip Release
0:01 - Intro
Hello, welcome to Week-Daily Tip #19. We're almost to the big 2-0. My name is Shane from MATRIX. In today's Tip, we're going to be working on the hips.
0:13 – Why Hips Hold Tension
Now, you may have said it yourself or heard other people say that they store tension in their hips or in their neck. There's a lot of truth to that. We've talked about it before. When your body is under stress, your Fight-Or-Flight mechanisms go into work to protect you. And one of the ways that that happens is it starts to curl your body up into the fetal position. And you can see -- as I'm doing that now -- that means my shoulders are lifting up by my ears. My hip flexors are engaging so that I curl into a little protective ball. So, when you're under constant stress, those muscles are constantly firing. As we've done in some earlier sessions, we're going to work on the muscles themselves to re-educate them on what it means to be not always under tension. To do that, we're going to go through a stretch and squeeze set of movements so the muscles learn their full range of motion and understand what it is to squeeze so that they can, in turn, relax.
1:18 – The Psoas Muscle
The muscle we're going to work on today is called your Psoas muscle. You don't have to remember that. But it's a really, really deep hip flexor muscle that's really powerful. And when it starts to tighten up, it pulls on your lumbar spine and pulls on your pelvis and it can make things uncomfortable. We want to do our best to try and release that when we can. To go through the sequence of moves is kind of complicated, but I'm going to make it simple. And then I'm going to do it seated so it's a lot more accessible for everybody. But in the seated position, you can't do the stretch as well. But you will get the opportunity to do the squeeze. Let's give it a shot!
1:58 – Psoas Stretch
When we're looking to stretch the Psoas, we want to step into a lunge position with your foot way far back behind you. Basically, think about tucking your tail, letting the hip shift forward, and starting to bring your spine back. And ideally, you're going to feel a big stretch right through here. If you have more body control and want to get a little bit more specific, you could think about turning your thigh inward so your heel spills outward. Same tuck of the pelvis. Same lift up and back to the body. But now on top of this, you can actually start to rotate your spine the other way. And you'll get an even deeper stretch through the muscle. Once you've found the stretch, the next thing we want to do is come into this squeeze.
2:47 – Psoas Squeeze
In the beginning, when you're doing these, think about trying to find a squeeze sensation between a 2 or 3 out of 10. Over time, you might ramp up to higher, but for the purposes of what we're doing today, keep it pretty low. To find the squeeze, we're going to do everything in the opposite direction. What that means is, very simply, your leg is going to come across your body. Try to pick your foot up to the inside. That's an external rotation of the thigh. And so now that your inner thigh is available, you're going to think about taking your ribcage and your spine down into that part. Try to pull the backside of your spine into your thigh. You'll feel a little squeeze there. And once you've got that, release. Take it back into your version of the stretched position. Do a couple reps of that and that will really start to teach the muscle how to engage. And by knowing what engaging is it can also start to learn how to relax.
3:49 – Seated Variation
Now if balance is a challenge and getting into those big positions is difficult. We can do it on a smaller scale when we're seated. I'm going to do the other leg this time seated. If you want to do it standing, you're welcome to. Or you can try it with me here. The first thing we're going to do is stretch. While you're seated it's a little bit more difficult. But even still, I can drop my knee down towards the floor while I'm still seated on the bench. And then start to lean backward. That'll get you some opening up through the musculature. From there, come back in. Now, hands on something if you need to. Or hands on your legs. Think about using the strength of your leg, again, to bring your foot and shin across your body so your inner thigh is exposed. Start to pull the leg up as high as you can. You're probably going to feel that even more so that when you’re standing because you can focus on it more, rather than focusing on your balance. Once you're feeling some engagement through here, rotate and start to bring your ribcage down into the thigh on the same side. Again, you'll find the deep squeeze. And then release it. Let the leg drop underneath behind the chair. Lean back. Hopefully, you'll get a little bit of a stretch and opening. And again, two or three reps on that side, so that you can really teach the muscle what it means to squeeze and what it means to stretch, so it can find a natural balance in the middle, and maybe not hold on to so much tension.
5:19 - Conclusion
That's it for today's Tip. As a reminder, if you are a part of the mailing list, you can go back into the archive. We did an upper body and lower body squeezing sequence and I talked about how that actually affects the Vagus Nerve and your Brain to help you relax, as well. So if you're interested in those things, you can always go back and check that part out.
5:39 - Farewell
Otherwise, this is our second to last Tip for the week. I will be coming back tomorrow with one more thing that is really powerful, but it's a little different. And you'll see, it'll be fun. And then next week, we'll do a little bit more work on the hips at the beginning of the week. So be sure to tune in for both of those. Right here on the MATRIX Facebook page 11am. Hope to see you there.