Did you know that around 80% of us during our entire lifetime experience low back pain
or pelvic pain at least once, during our lifetime. Nowadays, during quarantine, we are on an
average sitting for at least 8 to 10 hours during the day, this is causing two muscles
to get really really tight, and causing inadvertently back pain and related pelvic pain. In today's
video we are going to talk about exercises and strategies to get rid of this tightness
in your hip flexors and your quadricep muscles, to resolve your pelvic pain and back pain
symptoms, if you would like to learn strategies, tips, and tricks, to get rid of your back
pain, tailbone pain and pelvic pain related issues, please pause this video and subscribe
to this channel, I will be sending out latest evidence based information to you every week.
My name is Doctor Amruta Inamdar, I'm a pelvic floor physical therapist, that means a physical
therapist specializing in pelvic floor rehabilitation. I bring to you a clinical experience of 13
years in treating back pain and other pelvic pain related diagnosis. Have you been lately
suffering from low back pain and pelvic pain and wondering how to resolve this and where
to start from? Then, this video is for you! Please comment yes or no and please let me
know what your problem is in the comments bellow, I will try and answer each and everyone
of your comments, to the best of my ability. Vast majority of patients struggle to understand
what is going wrong when they sit for long hours of time and suddenly their back pain
starts or their pelvic pain symptoms resurface, so today we are going to try and understand
what exactly happens and why we need to stretch thee hip flexor and quadricep muscles. So,
when we sit, inadvertently most of us slouch, look at this pelvis, I'm sitting, and my pelvis
here is slightly anterior tilted, that means is rotated forward, when you sit overtime
the pelvis drops back, when you slouch, now, the hip flexor muscles are attached to the
spine, and they go forward to go and attach to your femur or your side bone there, so
when we slouch the hip flexor muscle gets tight, now, overtime if we don't stretch it,
it causes a lot of pressure on the spine and results in back pain. Now, most of my pelvic
pain patients, also complain of increased pain when sitting for long hours, because
one of the nerves that supplies to your pelvic floor also starts from the spine. So, in today's
video we are going to learn exercises to help stretch your hip flexors and your quadricep
muscles, and help you resolve your pelvic pain and your back pain symptoms, so that
you are able to help yourself sitting at your home.
Let me explain a little bit as to why we need to stretch our hip flexors today, this is
a pelvis, I'm standing, you are looking from the side, with tight hip flexors, as we were
talking about, hip flexors are attached to the spine, and they go, come down and they
attach to the front of your side bone, right? So when the hip flexors are tight, your pelvis
is going to be pulled forward. This is a neutral posture, when my hip flexors are excessively
tight, I'm going to be like this, now overtime, because your quadriceps and your hip flexors
are pulling, and pulling, they are compressive forces, on your spine, that causes a lot of
pain in the back, and it can cause pelvic pain and other related issues. Today we are
going to talk about exercise strategies, to deal with this, so that our back pain and
pelvic pain are resolved.
Let's begin with our exercises, so in the first exercise we are going to learn how to
loosen the hip flexors and quadricep muscles, with the movement that is called active release,
you are going to need a wall, you are going to hold on to a wall, just like this, and
you are going to try and kick the leg, now you have to kick the leg actively up and let
the leg swing back on its own, just like when you push the swing up and then the swing comes
back passively, just like that! Let's do a few, 1, 2, 3, 4, swing it back passively,
5, okay, this is the first exercise. What happens is with the momentum your hip flexor
muscles starts getting looser along with your quadricep muscle.
In the next exercise, we are going to need a pillow and a yoga belt, and this exercise
is pretty easy, we are going to do it on our tummy, so let me show you. I have a yoga belt
that I have hooked to my foot, and we are going to lie down, on your tummy, try to place
this pillow under your hip, so let's do that, move the pillow slightly up, yes, now, you
are going to bend your knee, and hold, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and let go, if you can you could
even hold it with your hand, if you have the flexibility, if you notice the pillow is actually
lifting my hip off the ground, that is what causes the hip flexors muscles to actually
elongate, let's hold it for 30 seconds, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (3x), and let go.
In this third exercise, we are going to take the pillow, again under your hip, and this
time, we are going to do an exercise for active release of your hip flexors and your quadriceps,
so let's begin. I'm going to have you lie down, on your tummy again, and place this
pillow under your hip, you are going to bend your knee and make sure and make sure that
your foot is actually staying flat, just imagine there is a glass of water put on your foot,
you are going to gently push the foot up, and down, let's do it ten times, 1, 2, 3,
so this movement actually elongates the hip flexors and and also helps stretching your
quadriceps mucles, 4, 5, 6, try to keep your foot as stable as you can, 7, 8, 9, and 10.
In this next exercise, we are going to stretch our quadriceps muscles, along with our hip
flexors muscles, now we are going to use a yoga bolster against a wall, just like I've
placed here, you might choose to have an additional pillow, depending on your flexibility, today
I'm going to choose to use a pillow just so you get some idea as to how to use the props
when you are doing this exercise, now in the first step, you are going to sit in front
of the yoga bolster, and I want you to bend your knees, just like this, you are going
to keep your low back very close to the yoga bolster, there should be no gap between the
base of your spine and your yoga bolster, you can choose to keep your heels away from
each other or together, make sure there's no knee pain, this is a very important pointer,
now, we are going to gently and slowly, try to lean back so that your spine is supported,
on the yoga bolster, open your chest out, open your shoulder blades out, and just relax
on this position. do some abdominal breaths, and this will beautifully open up your hip
flexors, and your quadriceps muscles.
Now, the exercises get a little bit harder, on this exercise we are going to need a pillow,
or something soft to cushion your knee if your knee is bony, in my case, my knee is
bony, so I'm going to choose to use a pillow, you are also going to use, one or two yoga
bolsters depending on your flexibility level, so today I'm going to show this stretch to
you with the yoga bolster, so that you get an idea on how to do it on your own home,
if you don't have yoga bolsters, you can choose to use dumbbells, or any other objects that
can help you get some kind of elevated support, okay? So let's begin. You are going to start
by putting one leg forward, and the other leg goes back, now let me see if I can do
it without the pillow, and I think I can, yes, I can! Now, the yoga bolsters go on one
side, and this is the important part, you are going to try and move your front knee
forward, so keep sitting in your front knee, the more you sit on your front knee, and elongate
your back knee, the more stretch you are going to feel on your hip flexor, so over here,
I'm stretching my right hip flexor, so I'm feeling a nice stretch right here, now we
are going to add a new twist to this exercise, what you are going to do, is bend your back
knee, I can't do this, I'm going to need a pillow, so, pillow here, forward knee bent,
back knee, yes, this is good, alright, so bend your back knee, and straighten it, so
this is like an active release exercise, for your quadriceps muscles, let's do it once
more, 1, 2, 3, yes you feel it in your quadriceps, and your hip flexors together, beautiful,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Alright, let's switch sides, so we get to see what happens on the
other side. Let me try the first part without the pillow, so now the right leg forward comes
forward, the left, slides back, you can also notice that one side is tighter than the other,
so in my case my right hip flexor are tighter than my left. I'm going to try and bend right
knee forward so that my left hip flexor gets a beautiful stretch and let go, and let go.
You have to make sure that you do all of these exercises without pain, right? Now, let's
put the pillow, and we are going to do an active release stretch, for your quadricep
muscles, leg comes forward, the back leg goes back, yes, go down into the stretch, keep
stretching, try to keep your right heel on the ground, as we stretch forward, now let's
bend the knee, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, again active release stretch for your quadriceps muscles
and your hip flexors, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.
So there you are, you have the best, easiest, and effective stretches to stretch your hip
flexors and your quadriceps muscles, I invite you to try each and every of these exercises,
and let me know how it goes. If you have any questions and comments, please feel free to
drop them down bellow, don't forget to subscribe to our channel, as I'll be putting out videos
every week, see you in the next video!