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Dynamic Hip Flexor Stretch (Upright Lunge Series)
The Dynamic Hip Flexor Stretch (Upright Lunge Series) is a great way to stretch and strengthen the hip flexors while simultaneously stretching the front of the hip. This series of stretches involves setting up with one foot forward and the other foot back in an upright lunge position. The back leg is then used to drive your torso forward and down for a deeper stretch. To add some movement, the pelvis can be rocked through the range of motion and the torso twisted for a
Transcript
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This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness,
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and we're talking about our dynamic hip
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flexor stretch in this video. So, if we're doing our dynamic hip flexor stretch, I'm
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going to assume that you've already done static and active hip flexor stretch
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techniques. Of course, using those static techniques to return a muscle that is
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adaptively shortened to its optimal length, then using those active
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techniques to increase end range strength and return normal reciprocal
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inhibition, and then we're moving on to our dynamic techniques now to increase
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neuromuscular control at the tempo of daily activity. So you're going to see
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this series progress in two major ways. You're going to see the series
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progress in complexity and stability to help increase neuromuscular control or
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increase the amount of neuromuscular control required, and then you will also
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see this series progress in velocity or speed so that we're getting more and
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more prepared to use this range of motion in whatever daily activity we do
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from just being in the gym and working out, all the way up to our more athletic
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individuals playing field sports or whatever sport they happen to be
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involved in. I'm going to have my friend Leanne come out and help me demonstrate the exercises in
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this video. Now, Leanne's going to assume the kneeling hip flexor stretch that we've
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all seen for our static and active techniques. Quick review of our anatomy:
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we have our psoas, which we'd probably feel in this area here which connects to
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our lumbar spine. So it's going to be important to look at your pelvic, as well
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as lumbar spine position in this series. We also have our TFL, which is this area
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here. We're going to have to pay very close attention to how the hip and how
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the leg moves, because that TFL is going to try to move us into rotation one
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direction or another. And then, of course, the rectus femoris. The nice thing about
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this particular series of dynamic hip flexor stretches is, pretty much no
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matter what we do, we will end up with a dynamic rectus femoris stretch. Now,
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this is a good position to start teaching this stretch from, because what
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we're going to use is a lunge. So, it's a static lunge, it's not the lunge that we
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were doing for strength training, it's an upright lunge, but if I start from here
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and posteriorly tilt, know that she has a good stretch going, I can then just have her go
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straight up. So let's go up into our lunge. You can see she lost the posterior
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pelvic tilt that was keeping the stretch in her psoas, so this ends up being a pretty
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good teaching queue, and we're just using that yoga block to make
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sure that she can descend into the hip flexor stretch she already knows. Once
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she has this mastered, we can then, of course, take the yoga block away. So we can
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slow it down as much as we need to, we can have her kneel down stay, posteriorly tilt,
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and then come back up. Once I know she's got it I'll let her get more dynamic, more
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fluid, and speed it up a little bit. I'll go ahead and take this yoga
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block away. Now, we have a couple different ways we can progress from here.
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We can progress from that arm series we used in our active hip flexor stretch series.
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Leanne's going to show us that. So she's actually going to reach up as she
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descends into this lunge. So go ahead and descend into the lunge, and she's going to
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use that same reach pattern, which if you remember is going to be reach
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straight up, laterally flex and just rotate back a little bit. But, the key here is if I'm going
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to let her progress, she's got to be able to do that by maintaining a drawn-in
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position here, as well as a posterior pelvic tilt. So as she descends down, rotates, I'm
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going to be watching her pelvic position very closely. How does that feel Leanne? -Great.
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Now, of course, if this progression didn't increase the stretch she feels in her psoas,
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which is what that arm position is meant to do, then we wouldn't do this
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progression. There's no need to just add complexities for the sake of complexity, we
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want to make sure we are getting an increased benefit. Another progression
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that you could use is, I'm going to have you go ahead and put your hands right out in front of you Leanne.
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Some of you have probably seen this before, she's going to descend down into
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her kneeling hip flexor stretch here, and then rotate towards me. Now, what that's
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doing is that's placing a lot of stretch on this fascia, as well as rotating her
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pelvis a little bit, increasing the amount of stretch on her TFL. So she's
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going to descend down, rotate toward her front leg, and then come back up.
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How does that feel? -Good. Can you feel it increase in the stretch of your TFL? -Yes.
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So she feels this one actually a little bit better than
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she did for the psoas, so I'd probably keep her with this progression, and maybe
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we would have to practice that psoas progression a little bit more. Now, if
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Leanne has this down really well, I can start progressing in velocity. The
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easiest way to do that is to go from our static lunge, to a reverse lunge with the
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same arm progressions. So let me have you go ahead and get centered here. Let's go ahead and see that
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reverse lunge first, with no arm series, making sure that you maintain a
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posterior pelvic tilt. Good. You should feel that stretching through your psoas, TFL, rectus femoris.
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Note, once again, this isn't like a
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weight lifting lunge, I would have her do a lot more forward lean. This is not
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something I would add mass to or any sort of resistance to. Let's go ahead
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and progress this now. So let's try that psoas progression with the arm.
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So once again she's reaching up, laterally flexing and turning back
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as she's descending down, lengthening her psoas even further.
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Let's see that TFL progression. So now she's going to descend down, rotate toward her front leg.
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Now, if I wanted to take this another step further, we could go from a reverse
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lunge at that tempo, to now increase in the velocity and neuromuscular control
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required by going into a walking lunge. So we'll start again without arms. Make
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sure she can maintain that posterior pelvic tilt.
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When you come back Leanne, I'm going to have you walk through. Rather than coming up to two feet balance,
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just keep walking through.
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She can step all the way through and increase the velocity even further and since
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Leanne feels a lot more when she does the rotation toward the front leg, I'm going
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to go ahead and add that progression back in. So she's going to walk, twist, step through,
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twist this way. Great. So there you go. There's your
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dynamic hip flexor upright lunge stretching series. So just to kind of
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recap all of those progressions, you had the static lunge with the yoga block,
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just as a teaching queue to keep teaching that posterior pelvic tilt even
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mechanics. You then have the static lunge with a reach for the psoas, or static lunge
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with rotation to the front leg. We then had the reverse lunge with either
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arm series, and then the walking lunge with either arm series. You're going to do
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anywhere from 10 to 20 repetitions of each side, and I hope you enjoyed
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