Sitting down for long hours can do us more harm than good.
Although it may seem comfortable at first, but over time, sitting down can weaken your muscle groups. This can lead to reduce flexibility and mobility between your joints.
Lower back pain is a common problem many people experience and can be linked to weak hips.
Here are 9 yoga poses which has helped me release my tight groin and hips from sitting down too much in the past.
I was able to improve my flexibility and mobility by doing these stretches regularly throughout the week.
Now I can squat more lower than parallel using a barbell.
Yoga Poses to Improve Your Hips and Legs
1. Crescent Lunge
Targets: Legs, groin and hip flexors. Strengthens your thighs, hips and glutes, improving overall flexibility and stability.
- Come into a warrior one pose. Place your hands on your hips and bring back your heel up towards the ceiling.
- Square your hips towards your front leg and drop your knee above your ankle.
- Bend your back knee and tuck your tailbone, bring your belly in and sink deeper.
- Draw your shoulders back and reach your arms up by your ears.
- If you start to lose balance and the pose feels a bit unsafe, drop your back knee and press on the top of your back foot and push your hips to connect your form.
2. Crescent Lunge Twist
Targets: Spine, back muscles, neck and shoulders. It helps strengthen your core and relieves tension from your back and spine.
- Start in the high lunge with your right knee forward.
- With your hands in prayer position, begin to twist over to the right side. Allow your left elbow to rest outside the right thigh.
- Keep your chest up towards the right, and right elbow up toward the sky.
- Engage your core and leg muscles.
- To come out of the pose, simple untwist and come back to the high lunge position.
3. Awkward Pose
Targets: Arm and leg muscles. Strengthens and improves flexibility in your feet and ankles.
- Start by standing with both of your feet next to each other keeping a 6 inch gap between your knees.
- Now extend your arms in front of your and keep them straight and flexed.
- Slowly descend, lowering your hips until they are parallel to the ground. Hold this position for 1 minute depending on your body.
- Rise back up to your starting position but this time when you lower your hips, you want to stand on your toes. This is the second phase of the awkward pose.
- Rise back up and this time when you're lowering your hips, try and lower your glutes as low as you can while lifting your heels up. This is the third phase of the awkward pose and the most challenging.
- Keep your fingers together. Relax your shoulders. inhale and exhale at a normal pace.
4. Goddess Pose
Targets: Core, thighs, shoulders, arms and upper back. Increase flexibility in your groin and hips.
- Start with a wide stance. Placing your feet wide apart, turning your feet out.
- Externally rotate from the inner groin towards the outer hip and bend your knees.
- Bring your knees over your heels and go as low as you can by pressing your thigh bones back.
- You can keep your arms straight and extended on the side of your body or above on the side of your head.
- If the pose becomes challenging, you can decease the distance of your feet and bend your knees just a little bit.
5. Crescent Lunge Forward Bend
Target: Core, hamstrings and glutes. Strengthens your hip flexors and calves.
- Start by placing one leg forward with your knee bending 90 degrees above your ankle. Place your other leg back and keeping it straight. The weight of your body should be pushed onto your toes and back heel.
- Keep your pelvis tucked and lift up your rib cage. Chi should be tucked slightly.
- Bend your torso forward gently, keeping your spine straight and extended.
- Extend your arms straight in the same direction as your spine.
6. Happy Baby Pose
Targets: Hamstrings and relieves lower back pain. Stretches the spine and calms the mind.
- Start by ;saying on your back. bring your knees towards your chest using your arms to hug them.
- Now flex your feet, open up the legs keeping the soles of your feet pointed at the ceiling.
- Grab your feet, push up through your feet while pulling down using your arms to keep the tension.
- You can turn gently to the side. As you warm up and become more flexible, you can try and bring your knees closer to the floor.
7. Side Lunge
Targets: Inner and outer thighs. Strengthens your quads, hamstring and glute muscles.
- Start by placing your feet in a wide stance so that your knees feel comfortable following the toes. Your knees do no need to go past your toes.
- Keep your back up straight. Your torso level side to side.
- Bring your hands up towards your chest white moving your hips gently side to side.
- If your feet are popping up when you're moving side to side, just bring your hips up so that you're not cheating.
8. Garland Pose
Target: Thighs, groin, hips, ankles and torso. Helps increase blood flow in your pelvis and regulate energy.
- Start with your feet placed wider then your hips and toes pointed out.
- Now slowly lower your pelvis so it's in between your heels. If your heels are slowly lifting up, you can fold a towel or blanket and place them under your heels for support as you become more flexible. You can also use a block to sit on if you need extra support.
- Push your pelvis down while lifting your chest up.
- Use your arms to create little tension between your inner thighs.
9. Baby Cradle Pose
Targets: Your hips groin, glutes, quads and hamstrings.
- Start by sitting up on a comfortable surface so that there is a curve in your lower back.
- Ankles crossed in front of you. bend your right knee and hold your right foot with both hands.
- Press through the ball mound of the big toe and the inner right heel until both sides of the ankle is even.
- Draw the shin in towards the chest, you wills tart to feel the stretch on the outer hip. For a more deeper stretch, place the foot into the crease of your elbow and wrap your hands around the knee. You can gently rock back and fourth, rotating your hip.
- If you find this position too intense, you can use your forearms and place them under your leg and try to lift the shin up.
- Inhale and exhale while keeping your spine straight.
If you're interested in learning more about yoga but your time is limited, you should check out out Yogadownload as an alternative.
Yogadownload is a convenient program designed for people who are interested in practising yoga but just don't have the time and money for private classes.
Yogadownload enables you to practice yoga on your own time, wherever you like!
Each program can also be tailored to your yoga style.
Conclusion
To wrap this up, sitting long hours can cause you more harm than good. It is important to maintain your body's flexibility and mobility.
Neglecting the importance of stretching can lead to common health problems such as lower back pain and tight groin.
Let me know which yoga pose helped down in the comments below!
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