RELEASE Hip Pain Fast With FOCUSED Stretches! Any Age
- chelsie462
- Jul 29
- 12 min read
This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in August 2024. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/jEPvQ2ZRB8U
Brad: All right, we're going to talk about hip stretches today. Now, general stretches for the hip are good for mobility, but if you really want to stop pain and get to the cause, you need to focus those stretches.
Mike: So we're going to show you five different stretches that target different muscle groups within the hip, and some are going to be more for beginners, and others advanced.
Brad: There you go. Let's get to it, Mike. All right, now the best way to follow along, so you know what's best for you, is to do the stretches with us and see how your body responds to it. Go through all of them, and you'll clearly find out there's probably one or two that'll hit the right muscle groups that are tight on you, and we'll help you out.
Mike: So keep doing the ones that work for you each day, and try them all out, like Brad said, because you don't know which one's going to work, and we'll kind of explain what muscles are being stretched with each.
Brad: Right, right. That's kind of what I said. All right, number one, this is my favorite that I do on a regular basis. I call it the seated clamshell. Now, if you haven't done this before, you're going to do it the way Mike is doing it. And then I'll show you the more advanced way that I do it on a regular basis. This can be done on the floor, carpeted floor, or even on the bed. I prefer the floor myself.
Mike: So first, what you want to do is cross your legs. If you're new to this or have really tight hips, your knees may be up here. The goal is to try to get them to relax over time and go down towards the floor. This would be the beginner phase. Again, I have a nice, upright posture. If this feels tight early on, you may have to lean back a little bit and then get your legs down, and eventually, over time, try to bring your trunk forward.
Brad: Right. Now, that may take some time to get to. If you're already flexible enough, and that's easy, same thing, except put your feet with your soles together, and I start out, I grab my feet, and I pull them in towards my hips, and then at that point, I relax. I may do a little gentle bouncing with my knees, that's up to you, or I'll grab my ankles and I use my elbows, sit up tall, and then I'm pressing down. It's stretching those hip adductor muscles, getting those hips to spread out and relax, and it's really important, no matter which one you're doing, you need to be relaxed and breathe deeply.
Mike: Roughly hold them for 15 to 30 seconds. You can do it two to three times if it feels good.
Brad: You bet. Very good. All right, now, the next one is a little more advanced, so we'll get to that in a second. I need to change position.
Mike: Now, for this next stretch, you're going to be stretching the exact same muscle group, but it's going to be more advanced. You're going to stretch your inner groin muscles, and you're going to be going into kind of an external rotation or abduction range.
Brad: Right, it does come at these muscles at a little bit different angle. You'll feel a little difference, but you're going to use the wall, and then with this, I recommend you have shoes on so you get a little grip on the wall. Make sure they're clean so you don't smudge up the paint on the wall. Now, you're gonna go about like this, 90-degree bend in the knees and the hip. You can adjust how close you get your hips to the wall is going to change the stretch a little bit. You have to experiment with what feels best for you, and then I'm going to go at this position. Now, also, where my feet are positioned on the wall, we can start with them together and do a stretch here that's not very aggressive, or you can get out a little farther, and this is the way I'd like to do it right about here, and then I'll go here, and I'll push out and get that stretch, and then after it feels good there, I'll go in a little tighter, maybe go out a little bit more.
Brad: Now, if you're one of those personalities that really thinks, if it hurts a little bit, we should make it hurt a little bit more, don't have that. Change your personality. These stretches should be gentle, comfortable stretches, but we are not creating any pain. No sharp pain for sure. Just relax.
Mike: We should mention that Brad's tall angles will come into play as well, so if you turn your toes more in or out, it's going to adjust how the stretch feels, so you can play with that as well.
Brad: Good point, Mike. Thank you. My body actually feels comfortable like this.
Brad: If I point my toes up, ooh, that definitely changes it. Excellent point, Mike. There we go. I'm feeling better already.
Mike: So this next stretch, we're going to work on your hip rotators. You can do this in bed or on the floor, like Brad'll show. Again, I'll kind of start for the beginners. Brad'll show how to progress this. If you're really tight, I'm going to stretch my left leg here, simply crossing on an ankle for someone may be too much. If this seems easy, slowly bring your ankle up your shin, and try to eventually get over your knee at least. Once you can comfortably get into this position, lift your right leg up, and we're making what we call a figure four stretch. Some people, this may be enough progression, and this is where they stay, but Brad, you want to show how to advance this?
Brad: Sure, at this point, you can put your hand on your knee and push it away from you. Again, the same rules apply: relax, breathe. No sharp pain should be experienced. If it is, you're going to aggressively and back off, so at this point, like I'm getting here, that's about as far as most people will get, and then you can see, both Mike and I'll do this together. So you see two different angles. I'm going to pull the opposite foot off the bed or the floor. You can reach under the knee and give it a little extra stretch. You'll really feel this.
Brad: I personally feel this is right down in the buttocks. It does get that IT band if you want to work with that as well. Deep breathe and relax, and again, you should do this on both sides. You probably will feel one hip is tighter than the other. Spend a little more time on the tight one.
Mike: Again, with all these stretches, 15, 30 seconds, two to three times, and try them all out.
Brad: Yeah.
Mike: We still have two more to go, though.
Brad: Yeah, I would say don't get more aggressive on the tight side, just spend a little more time on it. It's different. All right, now that stretch actually segues into this stretch. That one does a little IT band. This focuses more on the IT band by far, and the hip adductor, the hip gluteus medius. Okay, you can use a wall. Mike is going to show a more aggressive technique in just a second. I'm going to stretch my right side. The IT band goes right where that stripe is. I'm going to bring my leg a foot or a couple of feet from the side, and I'm going to lean in like this. I like to put my forearm against the wall, and then I can get a little more aggressive simply by doing this.
Brad: Don't get all flexed over. That's not going to be nearly as good as an up tall posture. I put my hand here and think about just relaxing, just stretch in, and again, 15 to 30 seconds. If you haven't done it before, 10 to 15 is probably a great way to start, and again, do both sides. Mike, how about that more aggressively?
Mike: So I typically do these at a countertop, something a little taller than this, so I'm gonna be stretching my left leg here. I'm going to kick it out behind me, I'm going to put my elbow on the countertop, and then try to get as upright as you can, letting my hips sink down, and you may have to push your leg out a little more, and you're going to feel a stretch in your IT band, but you're also going to get your pelvis and your oblique muscles over here, your low back. It kind of stretches that whole chain.
Mike: Again, you can hold this for roughly 30 seconds. Make sure to do both sides. For the other side, you're going to have to switch directions.
Brad: Now, you can tell Mike is very relaxed with this. He can talk comfortably, and that's how you should be able to do it, too. Take your time with it, get a feel for it. Probably the first time you do it, you're not going to be nearly as aggressive as Mike is. Doesn't this used to, or does it still help with your running?
Mike: Yeah, it helps with my IT band. My left side is tighter than my right. My right feels pretty good, but when I'm here, I kind of like to noodle around. You can feel different kinks and aches and pulls in different ways if you just kind of fidget in the area.
Brad: That's noodling, huh?
Mike: Noodling, that's a Kelly Starrett term.
Brad: Right, noodle. So we do noodle here.
Mike: So for this last stretch, we're going to actually stretch both hips, and you're going to kind of get into a lunge. You're going to need some stairs, preferably with two railings. Ours is just off for filming's sake. For beginners, you're going to want to start on the bottom step. If this feels easy, you can certainly work your way up to new heights, literally and figuratively. So when you're getting into this position, I'm going to start going forward. I'm stretching my hip flexor on my back leg here because it's going back into hip extension. My right leg is going into flexion. I'm kind of stretching my glutes a little bit and my knees as well, so you're just going to kind of oscillate in this spot. You can kind of rock back and forth. When you're here and you're not feeling much of a stretch, try to squeeze your glutes together. You're really going to feel more of a hip flexor stretch on that side. If I don't engage my glutes, look how much more forward I can get. I engage my glutes. I feel a good pull about right here, and once you're here, you can kind of noodle around a little bit, too.
Mike: Say your front hip is feeling a little tight; this can kind of loosen things up. Make sure, when you do one leg, to do the other. You may notice one hip can get higher up than the other, too, so maybe focus on that side a little bit more.
Brad: Good. Can I show one little trick that helps me out?
Mike: I suppose.
Brad: And one thing that Mike did a really good job on, I just want to emphasize, he kept his back up like this to stretch that hip flexor as he pulled, leaning forward. Once that's done, and I want to get even more aggressive on this hip, and it's really not aggressive, it just gets different parts of the hip, I'll lean into it, and actually, that noodling term comes again, and I'll work this, and it actually feels good if it hurts or gets a clunk in there.
Brad: Maybe it's not for you, but if it feels like, oh, this is a really good feeling on that hip while you're doing it as well as you get done and you're walking around, then you got the green light to do that one a little more. It may be that one side needs it and the other side doesn't. So that was it, five stretches, all kinds of customized for you, so you feel good about it. Mike, what else do you have to say?
Mike: So we want to talk about some other things. If you're still having some tight muscles and you can't get them fixed with stretching or exercises, we have another solution you can try.
Brad: Really?
Mike: Yeah.
Brad: Oh, good. Now, when it comes to the hip, you have a lot of muscle mass from the glute max, one of your largest muscles in the body, to the front all the way around, and this is something I personally like to use a massage gun to get into those muscles, massage them, get them relaxed, and then you can do the stretch. It's a good way to work it. As far as what size gun a person should use, if you're a larger person with a lot of muscle or soft tissue to get through, you can use a gun. This is one of our bigger guns. What is it, the X Max?
Mike: That's the X6 Pro Max.
Brad: X6 Pro Max, and it's max because it actually has a head that either goes hot or cold, two different settings. It's very nice, or if you're a smaller person and don't want so much power, this is an excellent option.
Mike: This is the Q2. They come in a variety of colors. They have three settings. Pretty simple to use, not as aggressive. Obviously, the cost is going to be a little bit less, being less aggressive, but they all come with a carrying case, five different heads, they're rechargeable, and they come with a two-year warranty on our website.
Brad: That's right. For your hip, I would use either the hot-cold head, that's if you want the heat or the cold, or the round head, or the air head, which is soft. I would start out with one of these first and then go to the hot or the cold. I personally do mine lying down with my leg crossed over like this, and I'll work that here, and that really helps for me on my SI joint, which is part of the hip, and I'll work with that, not with the hot-cold head. That's a little bit too strong, because you have a lot of bone in that area, but with a softer head, and you can work it here. You can work it wherever it feels good, get down to the hamstrings, the calf, or the thigh, even the calf.
Brad: One place you do not want to go is work into the femoral crease, which is right in here. There are actually some lymph nodes in there, and you do not want to massage lymph nodes. It's not good for you; it's a bad thing, so stay away from the femoral crease.
Mike: We also have one more option when it comes to heating and cooling we'll talk about in a second.
Brad: Oh, really? More steps.
Mike: Yeah, you wrote it on there!
Brad: That's right.
Mike: Now, another option to help loosen up some of your hip muscles before you stretch is using some heat. You could certainly just take a hot shower, bath, or use a hot tub, sauna, all of which are great options. If you happen to have a heating pad, that is also a good option. This is the Bob and Brad heating pad. You can use it on numerous body parts. You can actually wear it on your back, but you could take it anywhere, place it on your hip, run it for 10, 20 minutes, and then do your stretches, and things will really loosen up.
Brad: Right, I have had some patients use that while they're in the recliner, relaxing, watching TV, doing that, so you're getting a little entertainment with a nice, warm hot pack. Again, use whatever you can: shower, bath, stretch out afterwards.
Mike: So if you want to check out more videos on hip pain specifically, watch "Extreme Hip Pain Gone INSTANTLY."
Brad: There you go. Good luck with your hips.
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