Tight hip flexors

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oldie48

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I watched a video of me riding my lovely new horse, he looks fab. I could have cried with joy, he's such a kind and generous soul. However, rather than the vision of lightness and elegance I had hoped to see, I looked less dressage diva and rather more lorry driver. Analysing my position, it's a bit chair like and stems from my tight hip flexors not allowing me to bring my thighs back under me sufficiently, if you get my drift. I'm mid sixties so quite grateful that I still have functioning hips but I just wonder how much I can improve on my flexibility so that I can open the hip joint more and adopt a more classical position. I hacked old boy out today in a dressage saddle, (he's wider than new horse) and before I set off I forced my thighs back as much as possible, so I was less chair like. Frankly it was very uncomfortable but i managed an hour of hacking in this position. Agony to dismount but i did feel looser in the hips afterwards. Anyone else have this problem and any tips on how to overcome it. i really want to do new horse justice! I do lots of pilates but by the time I've got into the hip stretches exercises, the rest of the class have gone home!
 
Yoga and Pilates are good for this sort of thing but you can stretch at home too. The most important thing to remember is you must be warm before you stretch or you will most probably injure yourself. So do anything that will get you sweating up a little bit before you start and stretch. A good stretch for hip flexors is a lunge. Keep your back knee on the floor, with your lower leg flat on the floor, bend your front knee but make sure your knee doesn't come over your toes. Keep your back straight and push your hips forward. Hold for about 20 seconds then push your hips a little further forward to increase the stretch and hold for another 20 seconds then switch legs and repeat. Do this 3 times for each leg every day and you should notice an improvement. The stretch should feel uncomfortable but not painful. You can also do the butterfly stretch which is where you sit on the floor with you feet together, hold your ankles and use your elbows to push your knees towards the floor. Both of these should help and if you do it daily and make sure your warm before hand you should notice an improvement :)
 
I have this problem too. I'm only 5 feet short and have a narrow pelvis so I've always regarded the instruction "relax your knee away from the saddle" as a bit of a joke! Apart from making sure I rode narrower horses the one exercise that helped me was to stand with straight legs, feet hip width apart, and then push your heels out as far as you can. Aim to get your feet in a straight line, toes together, if you can. Doesn't actually work on the hips but somehow it helps me to get my legs more round the horse.
 
No answers I'm afraid, but suffer with same issues..........why don't they breed narrow IDs??? Thought I was being sensible at my age by buying an ID, but OMG give me my old warmblood back any day!

What I do is stand on one leg, curl other leg back behind me, grab the ankle on that side with my hand on that side and relax into the stretch, checking that my upper body is still vertical and that I'm not cheating. Hold for 30 secs and then repeat on the other leg.
 
Not quite sure if this is going to be flexing in the right direction but 2 exercises I have been shown:

1. The 'clam' lie on your side on the floor. Knees bent about 45 degrees at hip and knee (one leg on top of the other). keep ankles together and keeping hips straight (i.e. don't let them flop backwards) raise upper knee as far as you can. repeat 5 times on each side. This will strengthen the adductor muscles. I do it with my hand just on the junction of outer thigh & buttock and you can feel the muscle work when you get high enough. Do it a couple of times a day on both sides.

2. Lie on your back and stick your legs straight up in the air against a wall (so your bottom is more or less against the wall). Let your legs fall apart naturally with your heels and as much as poss of your leg touching the wall. Let gravity allow your legs to move further apart - you can support outer leg with your hands but idea is for the stretch to be progressive so it should be slightly wider after 20 seconds or so. Get up carefully when finished!

I second warming up before doing these! I do my 'clams' in the bath!
 
Stand in your stirrups with someone holding the horses head if needed and turn the torso first one way the the other stretching the hip and leg that is 'behind' then stand uponto your toes tucking your tail under then let the knee and ankle soften and drop try not to push them down from the pelvis, instead think of the knee and ankle lowering the pelvis, then bend the knee and place the pelvis from back to front into the saddle. To stretch the hip flexors on the ground, stand with the front third of your foot on a step and then stand up onto your toes tucking your tail under and with 'neutral' spine then allow the heels to drop keeping the hips up and the tail tucked under and soft knees. These exercises help but as said by others Pilates and yoga will also help.
 
Lots of brisk walking. When I am doing a lot of walking I notice the difference in my hip flexors most. When I am going driving and desk work on the other hand. ...........
 
Osteopath! I fractured my spine, which healed pretty well all considering but I was in agony walking and standing. MY hip flexors, PSOAs, quads etc were braced and had gone into spasm. The osteo is treating it, I'm doing pilates and am getting orthetics for my shoe to retrain the way I way which is terrible after the accident! I think I've probably had minor problems for a long time! After the first osteo appointment I felt like I was floating!
 
I've have a similar problem and was recommended stretching the psoas muscles. Apparently a tight Psoas muscle is also the cause of riding with a dippy back (which I also have!).

I have a book called "riding from the inside out" which has some good exercises. For the psoas muscles it recommends the lunge as described by posters above and it also has the butterfly as someone else has posted, but you do this just by lying on your back and letting the knees drop to the floor. A more advanced version of this stretch is done on your knees. Kneel down on all fours and then gradually widen the legs, lowering yourself to the floor, keeping your lower legs straight out behind you (parallel to each other). Then if you push back slightly with your hands you can get a deeper stretch. Obviously only go as low/push back as much as is comfortable
 
Tailor's pose is good for opening up pelvis area and strengthening hip muscles. Sit on floor (with cushion under bottom if needed), draw legs into diamond shape, soles together, then gently push down on to knees to increase stretch.
 
I have the same problems! Although mine are a bone issue which would only be resolved by surgery, which is a very full on one, so I'm having physiotherapy instead.

You can look up a few different exercises as well. I did have a really good stretch for them, but I lost it D: it might help to see a physio, they can have a look for you and give you some other exercises or tips to help :)
 
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