In this final video in the miniseries for clearing hip pain, I will be covering how to properly stretch your hip. Using a rope and learning to be patient. Opening the hip without pulling on the hip, so it feels strained. Learning to stretch the hip and not just pull on it can be difficult. Many bypass the hip doing this particular stretch often, it will run directly to the back. Remember this is a mini-series if you did not watch the other videos please go back and allow for a complete healing.
The first step is to have a rope that does not have any bounce to it. To stretch the hip well or any muscle for that matter, it is best to have a sturdy object. The bands out there work well, but they add a micro bounce which gets the muscle to also contract when you are asking it to open.
Second, place the rope in the arch of your foot below the ball of your foot. Bring your leg up and allow the rope and a straight arm to now support the leg up. No muscle tissue should be holding that leg up. Guide the leg across your body slowly, You might have to reposition the opposite leg. Go as low as the leg and hip will allow. When your elbow can rest on the ground stop there.
Third, allow gravity to do the trick here. With breathing and patience, your hip will begin to open closer to the hip joint and around your glute. Hold for a few breaths and bring your hip back up using the rope, not muscle tissue. and repeat as much as needed.
This month we will be taking apart and teaching about why your hip pain keeps coming back. I see a lot of hip pain showing up more this time of the year because of increased movement and activity; for instance, I garden and begin working in the yard. Others start running and doing more outside exercise and activities which have a much higher physical impact. I have done other videos that are more focused the upfront causes of hip pain. This video is all about the back burner reasons why your hip pain keeps coming back.
HIP ROTATORS
The focal point for this reoccurring hip pain is the overuse and misuse of our hip rotators. The common muscle causing hip and secondary hip pain is Piriformis, gluteus medius and different parts of hip flexors. They all rotate out the hip, but the important question to ask is why are these muscle creating and maintaining trigger points?
Our piriformis muscle refers to deep in the sacrum and in the back pain of the hip at the back of the femur. Gluteus medius refers to the entire butt and back part of the hip. The hip flexors play a role here and refer to the front side of the hip.
So, Why Does Your Hip Pain Keep Coming Back?
It happens because we spend a lot of time in a seated position and we naturally will rotate our femur in or out. Over contraction and overuse come into play due to this. What happens is while we sit we compress our glute depriving it of blood. We contract it ever so slightly using our hip rotators while sitting. Not realizing it has not been getting adequate blood flow or movement. Then the first thing we do when we get up and walk is over exaggerate our first step.
Let me show you what I’m talking about. Try this now…
If you are sitting at a desk where you usually work or image you sitting in your car. Get up and look what your foot does. 100 percent of the time it will point in the direction you want to go. The only time it will be point straight is when you are seated on your couch and get up and go. And, the majority of the time, you will end up over-rotating a muscle that has been deprived for a while.
but that’s not the real kicker though…
The real problem happens when you do an activity that needs actual power to sustain your body, lIke me when I’m gardening and doing yard work. If I don’t prepare these muscle to move, then I won’t be able to work for long and my body will recruit other muscles to pick up the slack. This is why your hip pain keeps coming back.Plus it might not even look the same because other muscles are creating more trigger points and malfunctions trying to keep up with this pattern.
This month I will be showing you how foam rolling, trigger point self-care, and stretching to combat this vicious cycle.
Enjoy the video. It explains more of why your hip pain keeps coming back. If you’ve got questions or want to tell me what you think, leave a comment down below and I’ll get right back to you!
I live in the northeast and it is beginning to snow often here. So I wanted to give a crash course of safe pain-free snow shoveling. I made one video ways back but wanted to update that video because I see things differently and there is more to talk about. This video will cover what to do during the shoveling cycle. But to truly have a pain-free experience you have to prep properly and cool down after you shovel. Those will be covered in another video. For today we are working with the three must do during shoveling, so you don’t break your back.
When you know you have to shovel snow many things happen in your head like, “Damn this is going to suck or hope I don’t hurt myself this time”. This type of worry I hear all the time. The way you make that easier is conditioning your body to live in the northeast. which includes shoveling snow. This is easy for me to say but challenging to execute. You must have many areas of your body functional and ready to work at any given moment. This takes time to develop because we stopped developing moment to moment muscle necessity, That is the true problem at hand. Let’s call it muscle alertness.
MUSCLE ALERTNESS
Is needed at all times of our lives but because we are living more of a convenient lifestyle our bodies have made it gone into power save mode. and does not keep all muscles available. We will talk about this more throughout the year but to get this to change you need to routinely active muscles that keep other muscle active naturally. Today we will work on steps to safeguard your body while shoveling.
The three steps needed to make sure you are safe is:
1.) Feet placement and weight load distribution.
2.) Hand placement and knowledge of which type of shovel you have.
3.) Core activation but blowing air out of your body as the trigger not you doing this manually.
Each one of these is important in their own right so think of each one as a skill to be learned. More so when you are looking at developing this skill notice the parts of your body stopping you, then begin Targeting those areas with your self-care. Using Foam Rolling, Trigger Point Self-care, and Stretching as your tool of choice to target and release those areas. This is how you begin to make progress on actual issues you have in your everyday life.
