Your hips are not a can that needs to be opened!

Do we really need to open our hips?

You don’t have to go far to find a yoga class or workshop that is either telling you of the need to open your hips, or citing a laundry list of benefits if you can do so.

The fact is, the hips are a very stable joint. They are not meant to open. They are meant to transfer the force of your legs through the pelvis and into your spine. The real question the prophets of hip opening need to be asking is, “what effect is the position of your hip joint having on how your spine is moving or not?”

A lot of well-meaning instruction in movement classes of all types encourages people to "stretch their hip flexors". If they are tight then they must need to stretch.

In a recent workshop with Karin Gurtner on "Rebalancing the Pelvis," she said, "when people say they need to stretch their hip flexors (there are ten hip flexor muscles), which one are they stretching?" And is it creating more balance in the body, or more imbalance?

Many people feel the need to stretch their hip flexors. Or stretch their piriformis, or their psoas.  In terms of movement, no muscle works on its own. But muscles that make a lot of noise (aka essentially saying, "stretch me, I'm tight") are signalling a lack of postural ease in the body.

Anatomy Trains founder Tom Myers says that an inability to extend the hip is a symptom of the body-wide myofascial core (suggesting the need for CORE Stability) not being able to function.

In movement practice, depending on the body (more specifically the position of the pelvis, and especially in the case of an anterior pelvis)  the bossy hips flexors need to be softened and lengthened and the pelvic core, through the engagement of the pelvic floor and rectus abdominus, need to be trained to resist the pull of the hip flexors. This takes time and training for the tissues to adapt and create the necessary strength and fascial adaptability.

You can't bypass retraining CORE STABILITY if you want to create a balanced body. 

Core stability is the unwanted child of the fitness industry because it isn’t glamorous work and it won’t get you on the cover of Yoga Journal. But it will allow you to do the activities you love without the aches and pains you’ve been erroneously led to believe are “part of ageing.”

It’s so simple and yet either not taught or taught poorly

I have been in the Pilates and Yoga world for over thirty years. Despite all the training and study, I was confused about not only the difference between core strength and core stability, but also how to teach it.

Nobody got in front of me and said whoa, you do not pass go until you learn how to stabilize your spine! That means..all the yoga and pilates classes, that means going for ten-mile hikes, that means all the mile-long swims. Nobody was able to help me learn how to do it.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t smart, it wasn’t that I didn’t have good teachers, it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t try hard enough.

I knew something was missing and I went to find it. Now I know what it feels like in my body and I know how to guide others to find it in their own bodies and more importantly in their nervous systems.

A stable core is not crunches, planks or abs of steel.

Simply put, a stable core is the ability to maintain a centred alignment of the torso while moving the arms and legs. It’s about neurological timing and coordination of the deep local muscles acting on the joints to protect them in a safe range of movement.

So in the case of tight hip flexors, what you will see in a person with an anterior pelvic tilt and dysfunctional core stability is when they move their leg into hip extension their lower spine goes along for the ride and arches creating compression in the lower back.

The problem with most exercise systems is that they ASSUME that you already have the skill of being able to stabilize your core. And most people don’t.

The crazy thing is that it is an easy and teachable skill that can be taught to anybody at any age.

So when you think your hips are seizing up and you need to OPEN them, you may want to consider the question, “maybe my hips are tight for a reason?” And your hips may be tight because your core stability needs some attention.

So if your hip joint is seizing up every time you move your leg your spine moves around like a toddler in a candy shop, will opening it make things better or worse?

Yes, we need to work on the hip joint..but what we need to do is learn to stabilize our core (spine and pelvis) and then learn to move the leg through a range of movement that’s appropriate for the structure of our hip joint, our age and the activities we want to participate in. We'll use soft massage balls to reawaken the stuck tissues around your hip joint (including the ten hip flexors). Then we'll learn how to move the leg and hip joint into both flexion and extension, and the other four ranges of movement the hip needs to be healthy.

This is what we do in my classes, live and through my online movement studio. First and foremost we learn, review and restore core stability through a series of exercises that create both containment and freedom of the spine.

There’s a reason for each and every exercise and the most important thing is that you understand why and how to do the exercises. I’d rather you learn a few helpful exercises well than a smorgasbord of exercises badly.

In a month you’ll have:

*** better balance

*** fewer aches and pains

*** more confidence in yourself

A stable core supports a stable mind!

Soooo…

My courses deepen the skills of core stability and focus on getting the crowd of muscles around the hip joint to allow balanced movement freedom so you’ll hit the dance floor, jump on your bike or hike the hills with improved stability and confidence. Core Stability combined with freedom of movement in the hip joint will set you up for success - whatever activity you enjoy!

FYI, a monthly membership is a terrific opportunity to tune up your body for all those spring and summer activities..like golf, gardening, swimming, and sailing, or those fall and winter activities like raking and shovelling, and staying balanced on ice!

If you want to see this work in action, make sure you sign up for my newsletter (below), check out all my courses and free materials at my online studio, and find something that will work for you.