{"id":941,"date":"2013-07-11T13:46:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T13:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?p=941"},"modified":"2013-07-11T13:46:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T13:46:42","slug":"turn-off-those-hip-flexors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?p=941","title":{"rendered":"Turn off those Hip Flexors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks you may have heard me talk about not using your hip flexors, switching off your thighs and hips or releasing tension through the hips…. why? It’s all about using the core more and the hip flexors less.<\/p>\n

The hip flexors are a group of muscles that bring the thigh and trunk of the body closer together. You use your hip flexors in many daily activities like walking, stepping up, and bending over. Technical bit here: the hip flexors are the illiacus,\u00a0psoas major<\/a>, pectineus, rectus femoris, and sartorius muscles.<\/p>\n

Now these are a very important group of muscles but they can tend to take over when we do core work. In some exercises duch as curl ips, roll ups and leg lifts the hip flexors can want to do the work, which means the abdominal muscles do less! Hence some people can do sit ups all day – it doesn’t mean their core is strong \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Anterior_Hip_Muscles200\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So how do I stop using my hip flexors?<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/strong>\u00a0A lot of us have to work on the hip flexor habit constantly and to be honest you can’t leave the hip flexors entirely out of most abdominal exercises. The idea is to get the core involved as much as you can and to keep the hip flexors from taking over too much.\u00a0Think core more, hip flexors less.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Body awareness is the key here, think about what muscles you can feel active\/tight when doing exercises. Try to switch off the hip flexors, relax through the bum, thighs and legs. It may mean taking an exercise down a level in order to perfect your technique. Try not to grip through the floor and draw the core in a little more.\u00a0Soreness in the groin area (especially after classes) can be a sign that you are weak in the abs and over-using your hip flexors. Another clue is not being able to keep your feet and legs down when you do a sit up or roll up.<\/p>\n

These Pilates exercises can help increase awareness and set the foundation for the balance between the core and hip flexor use:<\/p>\n

In knee folds, using the core muscles to stabilize the pelvis and lifting from your centre not your hips, also. In knee folds try to keep your big muscles, like the quadriceps of the thigh, out of the exercise as much as possible. Keep space in the hip area.<\/p>\n

Half Roll Back: As you begin to roll back, You might sense a point where the hip flexors want to take over. You can feel that at crease of your thigh. As you roll down, the hip flexors will have to do some stabilizing, but try to maintain a focus on rolling down and controlling with the core. Again keep that space in the hip area, think length.<\/p>\n

The full hundred calls for the legs to be extended. The hip flexors often see that as a call to over-work, so try taking it down a level and keep the legs bent with a focus on just using the core.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks you may have heard me talk about not using your hip flexors, switching off your …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,6],"tags":[224,225,153,118,227,226],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-back-pain-2","category-classes","category-exercises","tag-pilates-and-hip-flexors","tag-pilates-and-hips","tag-pilates-southampton","tag-pilates-with-priya","tag-psoas-and-pilates","tag-switch-off-hip-flexors"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Anterior_Hip_Muscles200.jpg?fit=133%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3FIsx-fb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2267,"url":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?p=2267","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":0},"title":"Are my hip flexors tight or weak?","author":"Priya Tew","date":"13 July, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The hip flexors are a complex group of muscles that play a huge role in posture, pilates and day to day life. 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So\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2049,"url":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?p=2049","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":3},"title":"Why can\u2019t I do a roll up? PART 1. Stiff backs and getting stuck.","author":"Priya Tew","date":"16 November, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Roll ups can be one of those nemesis exercises that people struggle with and they can cause so much frustration. I\u2019ve got a number of people in various classes who struggle with these so it\u2019s made me get my thinking cap on. Why are they such a struggle? How can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Core"","block_context":{"text":"Core","link":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?cat=964"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/Is2LFKfKCr0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":886,"url":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?p=886","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":4},"title":"Why is Pilates so beneficial for new mums?","author":"Priya Tew","date":"7 September, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Pilates is still quite a new form of exercise in the UK.\u00a0 Just to give you some background, Joseph Pilates, a German-born gymnast, circus-performer, boxer and anatomical-chart model, developed his training method during the 1920s, so it\u2019s been around for quite a while.\u00a0 He named his method \u201cContrology\u201d, initially to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AnteNatal"","block_context":{"text":"AnteNatal","link":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1223,"url":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?p=1223","url_meta":{"origin":941,"position":5},"title":"Why is Pilates so essential for new mums?","author":"Priya Tew","date":"9 May, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Pilates is still quite a new form of exercise in the UK. \u00a0It was developed by Joseph Pilates, a German-born gymnast, circus-performer and boxer \u00a0during the 1920's.\u00a0 He named his method \u201cContrology\u201d and it was designed to rehabilitate soldiers during the war.\u00a0 Later, it became popular amongst ballet dancers, then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bump to Birth"","block_context":{"text":"Bump to Birth","link":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/?cat=259"},"img":{"alt_text":"Postnatal Posture","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DiagramPosture-01-209x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":949,"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions\/949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pilateswithpriya.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}