- Bob, viewers, greetings, greetings.
Today we, - Hello.
- Oh, Bob says hello, wait, there.
We're talking about hip flexors today.
We know if our hips are tight it can cause hip problems
and back problems as well.
- Ass high, ass high.
- Ass high as well.
So you need to stretch 'em.
But there's one thing you must do
or it's not worth stretching them at all.
We're gonna show you that one thing in just a minute.
- Be ware. - Sam's gonna help.
- Good.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet ♪
- The hip flexors.
And then we do have 'em here.
Very clearly shown with Sam.
We've got some nice color tape - Right.
- Showing the location.
Now, and I must say with our his, our tapes
historically, we always focus
as well as almost everyone else on YouTube.
- Iliopsoas.
- Right, which is the deep muscle here.
And it's definitely a primary hip flexor.
- Right.
- But that particular muscle's not alone.
It has two other muscles that are very helpful.
One is the rectus femoris,
which connects to that ASI.
ASI is the bone right there.
It goes all the way down and is part of the quadriceps.
- Right. - To the patella.
- To the floor. - Okay?
Now the other one is, I like this muscle.
The Sartorius. - You would.
- Yeah, it connects from the same point
on the hip and it actually goes down and crosses
over to the inside or medial aspect of the tibia.
And what happens, did you know?
This is a little ah,
(chuckling)
trivia. - Trivia.
- This is the longest muscle in the body.
- It is. - Yep.
Now let's take a look at the mechanics of this
'cause this is critical to understand.
If you look at the hip flexor,
the iliopsoas muscle,
they have a very short lever arm.
If we look here, come on Sam.
And this hip flexes, it's pulling at this angle,
a very short lever arm from here to here.
Now, if you look at the sartorius or the rectus femoris
from this point, 'cause they do connect to the same point
in a similar point at a bottom,
there is much longer, a much larger lever arm.
So they have some advantages mechanically.
So if we just stretch this muscle
and we skip these two muscles, it's a problem.
- You gotta get all three.
- Right - All four.
- And it's actually easy to do while you stretch
but I think most people miss it.
- Right.
- Including, I've missed it myself.
- I have too. - You know.
And we've got this information from Rick.
- Rick Olderman.
- Rick Olderman, a therapist who's really
paving the way for-
- He's our man. - Yeah, he's our man.
- He can do it.
- He's done a lot of work
to understand this. - Right.
We'll get on with it in just a second.
(fast swooshing)
Okay, one of the easiest ways to stretch the hip flexors
in our opinion, at least my opinion.
- Right, I agree.
- Is lie on a bed or a massage table like this.
- Right.
- Get to the edge.
Now Bob is gonna slide his hips
over until his left leg can swing over like this.
Right now with his knee in this position,
he's starting to stretch the ilio-
- I could feel it.
- Yep, that deep muscle, okay.
Now, if he grabs this knee and pulls it up
you could even feel it more, can't you?
- I can see you, my leg pulls up a little bit.
- Yep, right here when this goes up.
Now if I push down here, you feel it more
- Right.
- So we can stretch the iliopsoas, but the
other two muscles, in order to get those to stretch
we have to get the heel this direction.
- Aye, yeah, yeah.
- And you start to feel that, don't you?
- Yeah, so now we're getting that rectus femoris
and the sartorius, those too long muscles
with more leverage and we're gonna stretch 'em.
Now if you wanna do this
by yourself and you don't have someone to help
which most people prefer.
- Right. - Take a belt like this.
Put it around the ankle
and simply.
- Aha. - Ah, look at this.
Making Bob smile.
So you're just gonna go pressure on,
pressure off, 10 repetitions or hold it 15 to 30 seconds.
And that'll also give you a nice stretch.
Make sure you do both legs and,
so you don't walk in circles.
Okay, we've got more to talk about.
(fast swooshing)
Okay, the second option you can do lying down
on a bed, and actually this one gets
after the sartorius a little more aggressively
as well as the rectus femoris.
So you can use a belt to help pull like we did
on the other one.
This belt is a little short, it's not Bob's belt.
I think if we had a longer belt at work.
We're gonna use a stretch strap that actually
has some advantages anyways.
- Got the hoops? - Yep.
So on your stomach, go ahead, Bob.
Can you lift up like that?
Now we're gonna get some stretch there
in those two muscles, but we need something like this.
And let it go over the shoulder and Bob's just gonna pull.
Do you feel that Bob?
- Yeah, I sure do.
- Ooh, now if there is somebody else around,
you can do it yourself.
But if we, Bob, can you let off on the pressure?
And I'm gonna just lift up and
put a cushion underneath his knee,
and that's gonna even make it a little more aggressive.
Use a pillow, a towel roll, whatever.
How you doing, Bob?
- Real well.
- Now to get this even, even more so we get
that sartorius, we wanna go with some internal rotation
of the femur.
And what we're going to do is, Bob's gonna take this.
There we go, and let that heel go
to the side like this.
- Ooh.
- And you're gonna get more aggressive on that
sartorius, that long muscle in the body, and stretch.
How you doing, Bob?
- I'm doing well.
(laughing)
- Okay, you can use either one
whichever way works best for you, but one way or another,
get those two long muscles stretched out.
All right, Bob, that's enough.
It's enough, Bob. - Okay.
- We're done. - Good.
(fast swooshing)
- All right, thanks for tuning in.
I'm sure your hips are gonna feel much better
to get those long muscles even longer.
And Bob, once again, we can fix just
about anything except for.
- A broken heart.
- And we're gonna continue to work on it,
even though we're not making any progress.
- We're gonna persevere.
- Yeah, it's been 12 years and we've been working
on it with no progress.
But we don't stop.
(Bob laughing)
We will never stop.
(bouncy music)