 to physical therapy for a better life. I'm your host, Christine Lenders, physical therapist and board certified orthopedic clinical specialist. Today we're talking about the hips. We are going to give you, I am going to give you all the best moves and the simplest strategies to achieve pain-free and better functioning hips. So anyone that's ever had a problem with their hips, we know or you're about to know that the hips are so important for so many reasons to the health and well-being of our functioning physical body. They provide a great deal of stability and they need a great deal of mobility. So let's go to video number one to learn a little bit more. The hips, so when you are an athlete, it's often a force generator. So if you're doing your golf swing and you're a right-handed golfer, you will wind up all the hip muscles to swing and then they will be on a stretch and then that stretch that's off reflex and those muscles unload and you swing your golf up. I know it looks like a swing a baseball bat but you can also baseball swing. You're loading the hip, the hips are generating the force, the force is coming through the pelvis and you swing a baseball bat. There's so much force. A pitcher who winds up on that back leg and takes their tiny little hip rotators, I'll explain them in a minute, and put them on a stretch so that they can go and unload the hip and deliver the force in a pitch. And so inside the hip muscle, this is your hip joint here on little Richie, you've got this socket right here and this is your hip socket. A lot of people think their hip is right here on your pelvis. That's like right up here. Your hip is actually right here in your groin. That's where the hip socket is and you have these six little muscles that run from the pelvis here out to the hip and they control their little rotators like your rotator company or shoulder. They run out this way, this way, this way, this way and there's one that attaches from the front of your sacrum out to your hip and that's the piriformis muscle. A lot of people have heard about that but the other two are the supere and inferior gemellus and the internal and external obturator and the quadratus femoris which all help to rotate and stabilize the hip but when you rotate that leg in they go on a stretch so that they can unload and explode into the body. But a lot of times the hip doesn't have adequate range of motion in order to accomplish that or the bigger glute muscles, the gluteus medius in particular that runs from here to the hip, doesn't have enough functional strength when you're walking and that's where a lot of people will get hip arthritis, knee pain, knee arthritis, foot problems or even back pain because the gluteus medius needs to stabilize your pelvis on this one leg like that and so if the gluteus medius isn't strong this will happen, you'll get a hip drop and it either tweaks your back and causes disc herniation or pain or radiculopathy or piriformis syndrome or people will walk and they'll lean over that side and that also causes instability in your back so from behind if I had a weak gluteus medius on the right instead of being like this when I went to take a step you would see this and you could see my back bend or you would see people who walk like this and you could see how that creates excess motion at the back but also at the knee if this is happening this bone is rotating in and that's where you will get a twist at your knee that will wear away the cartilage in your knee and leads you to having osteoarthritis on your knee so that's a little bit about the hip and how we need to have stability I'll show you in a minute. Now I have done several shows on hip stability in my previous show movement matters as well as in this current show physical therapy for a better life where I show how to do many band exercises side stepping and I just did some two weeks ago on four steps to pain free so there's a lot of different shows that show the same exercises for hip stability and I wanted to call that out today as well because right now I'm going to show you the mobility that's going to get you to pain free if you have stiff hips if you have arthritis if you have a poorly functioning lower body and so I want to explain a little bit more about those little muscles that I called out let's go to the second image and you'll see these muscles so you see here on the left screen that big red that's a powerful gluteus maximus muscle that's what you feel when you when you touch your backside that's your gluteus maximus and if you look over to the right side the sacrums in the middle that's that little centerpiece the gluteus medius is the one I was just talking about at the end of the video and you need to have a well functioning gluteus medius because that is what's going to keep your pelvis level on your femur on your thighbone bone when you're standing and if you don't you'll get that hip drop or that lean over that I was talking about now if we go back to the image then you're going to see those six little muscles the piriformis the superior gemelis the obturator internist the inferior gemelis the quadratus femoris and so you get these tiny little muscles in there that run out from your pelvic ring over to your femur your thighbone and those are all those little guys when they get short and tight because we've had erroneous mobility or we haven't moved enough that's when you can get a very poor functioning socket sitting in a ball sitting in your socket and I could show you a little closer I'm a little richie here so what I was showing you before so here is the hip socket right here and that's the ball that rotates in the socket your thighbone right here and so a lot of people think their hips are on their on their pelvis right here but the hip is actually right in here straight through your your groin muscle and so you've got your powerful hip flexor muscle that runs from your spine down to the hip bone and you've got your gluteus maximus the big muscle that comes now from the back here I'll show you on the pelvis the gluteus maximus runs from here back that's your seat gluteus medius comes that thinner one right to here it will move your leg to the side this one doesn't move so well but also that's what stabilizes your pelvis on that is the gluteus medius and then all the obturator and the gemelli brothers that run from your sacrum or from the pelvis ring down here on this little loop your sit bone here over here and that's like the hip rotator cuff I like to call it those are the things that we need to make sure have adequate length in them and they're not too tight so that your ball can move freely in the socket and not lead you to hip arthritis or any other bursitis or hip dysfunction that can give you pain so when you stretch out your hips you can quickly achieve pain-free so let's go to the next video and I'll show you a little bit of my favorite and my patient's favorite stretches to gain mobility fast in your hips if you have a stiff hip or a hip that doesn't have enough range of motion or you feel like you can't you know cross your legs to put your shoe on or bend against something you first want to gain some mobility in your hip so you have more more normal range of motion in order to make the joints in your body move more effectively so one thing I like to do it helps the the hip socket to get back into the pelvis where it needs to be especially if you've been guilty of like slouching or kind of sitting this way it tends to push the the ball forward in the socket and can give you all kinds of problems in the front and pinching on the front of the joint because you want to get on your hands and knees like this and kind of sway your back a little bit like you've been a horse that's ridden too much and suck your stomach and just stabilize your spine that's a little bit more of a vulnerable position for your back and you want to aim your tailbone to the sky and scoop back now if you have a stiff hip you might get to here and your back starts to round like that you want to keep your back swayed and aim your tailbone to the sky and only go as far back as you can while keeping your back from moving you don't wear your spine to give up range of motion because your hip doesn't have any and you also might feel a pinch up in here with your hip if you do just stop right there and go back stop and return I like to do 20 times it seems like it's 10 repetitions too many but the body likes to go easily into things it doesn't like to be forced so if you do 20 times you'll be giving just a little bit of mobility and that will help anyone who has hip impingement or hip arthritis or anyone that has hip pinching pain especially like in the front so also if you don't have enough mobility in your hip you want to stretch out the glute so oftentimes the glutes can get tight if you're here or just different activities that you do and your ball won't go back into the socket where it needs to be because now you're all those little rotators get tight and they hold it forward like that so you're gonna have to stretch it out so my favorite stretch is what I call the knee to opposite shoulder stretch so you basically take your knee line it up with your opposite shoulder your left knee with your right shoulder your foot's gonna fall a little bit to the side you don't want to feel any pinching in your hip you're gonna put your left hand at the knee and your right hand somewhere mid shin and just pull it gently towards your chest so you don't want to crank it like this you just want to pull it gently towards your chest you're going to get a very deep rotator stretch a lot of people do this you get more of the superficial muscles of your hip you want to get the deep rotator so you can do the knee to opposite chest stretch or the very typical and famous figure four stretch where you cross your ankle over your knee and then you cross your ankle over your knee and then you can just reach through and grab your leg if you can't reach there you can go under your thigh and I also I don't know if you can see it you can also use your elbow to cantilever it here so you can push that down but don't go push it hard you don't want to damage the hip joint you just want to gently stretch it and I like dynamic stretching so I tend to rock ooh that's a stretch oh that's not ooh that's a stretch oh that's not so you can do that with both your hips you also very important muscle involving in low back pain is the hamstring muscle it crosses the hip and the de joint you want to put one leg straight and that is to make sure that your spine stays in the neutral position a lot of people stretch their hamstrings this way I don't know if you can see my back bending here so my my low back is giving up some motion because my hamstring doesn't have it but as soon as I straighten my leg that's all I can get because you want to make sure this doesn't round to give you all this false hamstring range of motion so if you can't get much then you cross your leg your fingers behind your thigh and just gently kick and release kick and release to open up the hamstring to help your hip to be a little bit more free another one I like especially if you golf or you have hip arthritis is to get some kind of range of motion in your hip not your back again so you're going to put your feet as wide as they can and as close to as your buttocks as they can and then you'll just let balls fall to the side you may be surprised if you're having some difficulty that one way goes very nicely and the other way does it and you may feel a stretch here you shouldn't feel any pain or pinching and then flip the other way and let it stretch I clearly don't go as far this way so I need to stretch that a little bit more but that is another stretch that helps disassociate your low back from your hips so it basically gets your hip moving with your back stable a lot of people will do the knees together feet together and drop their knees side to side that is to get your back moving that's not a hip stretch so I hope those help you get some mobility in your hips those videos are great and I know I showed a lot of different mobility exercises or stretches as I like to call them in there and I don't expect everybody to do them all some people need to do them all other people may only need one or two of those moves to achieve a pain-free hip but the reason why I give them to you is because our bodies need to move one of the things I think many people don't realize is that when you move a joint like if he moves his shoulder joint there's fluid in that joint that swishes around and lubricates the surfaces and gives nutrition to all those structures that are in and around the joint and that's what makes us feel free for anybody that wakes up in the morning and says oh I just feel so stiff like stiff or it's achy or it's painful and then as soon as I start moving down the hall all that stiffness and achiness goes away and that's because you just lubricated the joint surfaces you just got nutrition in the form of blood flow and fluid to those tissues and now they feel good and they feel more mobile so movement is medicine I've heard that term for years now I haven't heard it too much lately but I think one of the things that I want to inspire everyone to do is just to move a little bit more I don't expect you to run a marathon or start walking five miles a day but if you just move your body that's a prescription that you're prescribing for yourself like a drug like a doctor would prescribe a drug or a vitamin you're prescribing movement for yourself that's going to help you achieve pain free so I've had five shoulder surgeries in the morning I move my shoulders I gently sorry little Richie stretch them up over the head sometimes I do this and I gently go I gently go and then I am ready to go and help people at work to become pain-free sometimes I march in place to lubricate the joints of my hips and my knees oftentimes I go to the beach and I take a walk and so there's all different kinds of moves you can do you can wake up in the morning and move your feet up and down slide your leg up and down the bed sheets just to get some movement I I want to call that out to you so please try some of those stretches try them all watch the video again and do the knee to opposite chest to stretch the obturators and the gemelli brothers and all those deep hip rotators do the stretch where your feet are wide and let your knees fall in and out to gain more range of motion to make your arthritis pain go away or improve your back pain because now your hips are moving better or stop your knee from hurting because if your hip doesn't move your knee then has to all these things will be those steps that get your body to achieve pain free so just go for it and enjoy but that's not it so let's go to the next video where I show you a little bit more about how to stretch the bigger muscles in a three-dimensional manner a great way to get mobility in your hip all the big muscles is to do dynamic stretching and I like to do it in three dimensions because we don't just move in one dimension our muscles function in three dimensions so we're going to do a little hip flexor stretch first so you're going to put one hip on an object that doesn't slide so on the edge of your bed or on a chair against a wall if you can raise your arms up over your head you're going to suck your stomach in push your hips forward a little bit it will stretch your hip flexor your ilio psoas muscle your psoas muscle and you're going to push your pelvis forward lift your chest pelvis forward lift your chest I like to do me about five times each and after that you're going to go in the second plane you're going to hold your pelvis forward you're going to move it left to right and you're going to feel a lot of stretching in different angles in here five times make sure your tummy's in then you can do the third dimension you're going to put your pelvis forward turn your chest up into the left come back pelvis forward up into the right pelvis forward up into the left pelvis forward up into the right so that's going to get your hip flexor now we're going to do your hamstring so you're going to put your leg on whatever surface you can get on your hamstring and and not have your back rounded like this you want to have your spine in neutral and stretch your hamstring not your back and you're just going to bend your left knee and bow your chest forward again you don't want to round your back like that you don't want to give your your low back to give up motion where your hamstring doesn't have any way your hip to get the range of motion so you're going to bow forward again five times forward backward then you're going to hold it and you're going to move your hips left to right now it's hard left to right again i do about five times then you're going to bow forward turn a little bit to the right a little bit to the left now i'm going to get my glutes a little bit more in the game here just don't let your spine round keep your chest up sternum to the sky i like to say and now you can get those deep rotators that we were just stretching earlier and you can put your leg and kind of a figure four i used to use the kitchen table actually because it was high enough for me so i don't strain keep your weight on your hands you don't want to put all that pressure on your knee especially you have a sore knee you want to make sure that your body is safe so keep your pressure on your hands back leg straight spine in neutral and then just bend at your hip so i'm doing like a little push up bend at your hip that's the first dimension now you're going to hold it and you're going to move your hips a little bit to the right that brings in the side hip a little bit of my back here side hip side to side and then you're going to bend and turn one way up then turn the other way keep your tummy pulled in just to stabilize your spine and this one i forgot to show you earlier which is a great thing to stretch all these tight muscles your glutes in the outside of your pelvic ring here and what you're going to do is you're going to get on your hands and knees walk your hands forward again keep your belly button in just so that you can keep your spine stable and then you're going to walk your hands over to the left and then lean your hips over to the left a lot of people say they've been telling me lately they have tight hips and they're not really talking about the deep inside the joint they're talking about all these powerful glute muscles they're playing sports and they're getting tight and you lean and you breathe it's very important to breathe because it's another muscle that attaches from your rib cage to your pelvis and you want to stretch that deep breath and then you come up walk your hands over to the other side let your hips and your buttocks fall to the left and then breathe so enjoy free hips every single stretch i showed you today every single move i showed you today is going to help you to achieve pain free hips and the one point i would like to hammer home as we wrap up is that it doesn't have to be a huge step of movement that you do every day but one comfortable step that you start doing like any new habit you want to develop you start stretching your hips on a regular basis the key is consistency so if you pick one stretch that you're going to do that makes me happy that means you are one step closer to pain free hips one step closer to being free in your physical body to do all that you want to do so pick one stretch pick two stretch pick three stretches whatever it is that you want but do is something that fits into your schedule something comfortable for you that you can achieve and feel good about and that will start your process of movement of getting your body back to where you want to be of achieving pain free which is something that myself my patients and everyone that experiences pain all strives for movement is medicine prescribe yourself something today and enjoy pain free hips thank you so much everyone for joining us today to learn about how you can achieve pain free hips with a couple simple moves and thank you to think takawaii and all our sponsors and donors for allowing us to be here with you life is better when you listen to your physical therapist aloha everyone thank you so much for watching think takawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on 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