If you’ve found yourself searching for hip flexor stretching exercises it’s likely your hips have felt tight, achy or restricted for a while. You might notice every time you go to squat, lunge, run or even sit at your desk for long periods of time you get a pulling sensation in the front of your hips that never fully goes away. 

Lots of active adults struggle with managing nagging tightness in the front of the hips that never fully feels like it goes away no matter how much they stretch. Before you dive into another mobility routine, it’s important to understand why your hip flexors might be feeling tight so you can find a solution that finally gives you long term relief. 

What Causes Tight Hip Flexors 

Most people assume their hip flexors are tight because they sit too much. While this can be part of why your hip flexors feel tight there’s usually more to the story. What most people don’t realize is that tightness is just a sensation, and not always an indicator that the muscle tissue itself is in a shortened position.

If you’ve found yourself stretching and stretching over and over again with no long term relief of your symptoms. It’s likely that the true root cause of the issue isn’t being addressed.The muscle itself being in a shortened position isn’t the main cause of why you’re feeling sensations of tightness in the hip flexors. 

The sensation of tight hip flexors can come from a few different things. Sometimes your body is trying to create stability where it doesn’t feel supported. Other times certain muscles are overworking because others aren’t pulling their weight. And in other cases, your nervous system may be holding tension through the front of the hips as a protective response.

Let’s break down the most common reasons this happens.

1. Prolonged Sitting or Desk Posture: No sitting itself is not bad, but our bodies don’t love being in any one position for extended periods of time without moving. Prolonged sitting causes the hip flexor muscles to be in a shortened position over long periods of time. When muscles sit in a shortened position they also often become weak. Weakness in the hip flexor muscles can cause them to feel tight 
2. Weakness in the Glute Muscles: You have 3 main glute muscles. While a lot of traditional exercises work your main glute muscle (gluteus maximus), however not a lot of people work the other two muscles (gluteus medius and minimus). These smaller glute muscles act as stabilizers for the hips and pelvis. And when these muscles are weak, the hip flexor muscles will kick in to compensate. This can cause the hip flexor muscles to become overworked and feel tight. 
3. Previous injuries or compensations: Low back, knee or hip injuries can change how load is distributed throughout your lower body. When you start to compensate or your movement patterns start to shift your hip flexors may have to work harder to stabilize the hips and pelvis 
4. Stress or a heightened nervous system: Second to the neck and shoulders, the other most common places people, especially women, can hold stress is their hips and lower back. Chronic stress, overtraining, or excessive load being placed on the body can make the hip flexor muscles feel tight, even without true muscular restrictions

In most cases, hip flexor tightness is your body’s way of signaling imbalance, not just a muscle that needs to be stretched. Addressing those underlying issues is what creates lasting change. 

The Best Way to Relieve Hip Flexor Tightness Long Term

If you’ve been stretching your tight hip flexor muscles for weeks with no long term relief, you likely don’t need new hip flexor stretching exercises to help relieve your tightness.

In fact, even things like foam rolling, using massagers or even rest likely won’t help address your symptoms long term. So what will? 

Strengthen what’s weak: Building strength in the glutes and other posterior chain muscles, lateral hip stabilizer muscles and/or the deep core muscles can help to take the workload off the hip flexors and decrease feelings of tightness 

Improve hip flexor mobility: Focusing on active mobility (not just passive stretching) through the hip flexors and other hip muscles. Emphasizing being able to move through a full range of motion with control 

Balanced training: A well rounded strength program that focuses on rotational patterns, single leg movements, and eccentrics can help to create balance with strength within the body to support optimal functioning

Address posture and daily habits: 1-2 hours in the gym can’t undo 8-9 hours of sitting at your desk working all day. Start building healthy movement habits throughout the day in order to help your body feel and function at its best 

Manage stress and optimize recovery: A heightened nervous system can make pain receptors in the body more sensitive. It can also cause more tension and tightness in the body as well. Managing stress, optimizing recovery by focusing on sleep, and even breathwork can make a big difference in how your body feels day to day

When your body feels supported and balanced, your hip flexors don’t need to stay in a constant state of tension. Once you’ve built that foundation of strength and stability, stretching becomes a tool for recovery and mobility, not a temporary fix.

The Best Hip Flexor Stretches to Relieve Tightness 

Long term relief of hip flexor tightness isn’t always found in stretches that require you to hold a position for an extended period of time waiting for the muscle to release.In order to create mobility that lasts your body needs to learn how to create and use that new range of motion in order to find lasting relief. 

The following hip flexor stretching exercises combine both mobility and control, helping your hips move freely for the long haul.

Hip Flexor Lift offs

Purpose: Builds strength in hip flexors at end range motion 

How to do: 

• Start in a half kneeling position with one leg up
• Without moving your trunk too much lift the leg that is up several inches off the ground 
• Hold for 2-3 seconds, then lower back to the ground with control 

Hip CARs (Controlled Articular Rotations)

Purpose: Improves joint mobility and control through a full range of motion 

How to do: 

• Start on hands and knees 
• Keep your trunk tight and spine in neutral, moving one leg through a circular motion 
• Perform in both the clockwise and counterclockwise direction 
• Move slow and stay within your available active range of motion

Modified Plank with Hip Abduction

Purpose: Integrates hip mobility, core stability and glute strength, teaching you to activate and strengthen muscles that the hip flexors will compensate for when weak

How to do: 

• Start in a modified forearm plank with bottom knee bent and top leg straight, make sure shoulder, hip and ankle are all in a straight line
• Keep core engage and raise top leg towards the ceiling and slightly backwards
• Avoid shifting through your hips and extending through your low back

Bulgarian Split Squats

Purpose: Stretches or lengthen the hip flexor muscles under load for best long term change of the muscles 

How to do: 

• Place your back foot on a bench or chair and step forward with the front foot into a lunge stance
• Keep chest tall and slowly lower into the split squat, you should feel a stretch in the front of the hip of the back leg 
• Pause briefly at the bottom, drive back up with the front leg

Incorporating these exercises a few times per week helps your hips move through their full range of motion while building the strength and control to keep that mobility. Over time, your hips will feel looser. Not because you stretched more. But because your body finally feels supported enough to let go of tension.

How Physical Therapy Can Help Relieve and Prevent Hip Flexor Tightness

Many people try stretching, massages or random mobility workouts with little to no success or only temporary relief. If you’ve been wondering what hip flexor stretching exercises you should be doing physical therapy can help. Physical therapy for hip flexor tightness can help you identify the root cause of your symptoms and find long term relief. 

During your initial physical therapy assessment for tight hips in Denver, CO can look at things like:

• Your hip mobility and true length of the muscular structures surrounding the hips
• How the core, glutes and pelvis may also be playing a role in hip functioning
• How the hip is functioning with activities like lifting or running 
• Assess strength imbalances, or motor coordination issues 
• Compensations from previous injuries 
• How daily habits like posture, desk set up, training volume, or recovery is affecting performance 

Sound like something you would benefit from, if you’re local to Denver, CO or looking for physical therapy services in Wheat Ridge, CO request an appointment here

Not local to Denver, no worries, we can still support you through your hip flexor tightness or any other hip pain you may be having virtually through a virtual movement assessment and custom programming