Hip Hip Hooray!

Often at the beginning of a yoga class I will ask students "What do you need from your practice today?" Sometimes this question is met with a small shrug of the shoulders or a comment of "whatever comes..." but often I hear students asking for poses that work on a cranky lower back or that open the hips.



My thought for this week is to chat about our hips. If you think about how our anatomy has evolved over thousands and thousands of years, we've become upright. Our hip and shoulder joints changed as we moved from four to two limbs. This transition alone meant that the front of our hip joints needed to open up and extend in order for our spine to find its way to be perpendicular to the earth. Thus, the distribution of our body weight put the weight bearing through our pelvis and legs.



Additonally, it is said that the hips and pelvis hold our emotional baggage. They become a dumping ground for unresolved issues...all the more reason to make peace with our hips.



It's no wonder that our hips can be a bit tricky-often tight and out of balance. The structure of our hip joint is a ball and socket being formed by the head of the femur into the concave space of our ilium. Our body's most powerful muscles are around the pelvis...the gluteals (our power house in the back), the quadriceps in the front thigh, hamstrings in the back thigh, our hip flexors lying deep within and our abbuctors and adductors that move the femur into and away from the mid-line.





With the low back settling itself via the sacrum right into the pelvic bowl, it's not surprising that they often have a cause/effect relationship. If our back is weak or tight, our hips suffer. If our hips lack strength or range of motion, our back compensates. You know the song...."the hip bones are connected to the back bone and the back bone's connected to the rib bone...". So, let's look at ways to keep our hips happy and living in harmony with its neighbors.



Avoid any sustained posture or positions. That includes sitting for hours on end without getting up or shifting in our chair, lying in bed (notice how we naturally toss and turn during sleep to interrupt the same held position) or standing for extended periods. If your job has you in one of these postures, learn ways in which to switch it up at least every 30 minutes.



Seated chair stretches are a worthwhile repertoire of movements. For example, place one ankle on the top of the other thigh, sit tall and let your knee open out wide. Lean forward with a long spine to enhance the stretch. Doing a seated cat/cow stretch (extending and flexing the spine) as well as simple seated twists help to interrupt sustained postures. Better still, get up and walk at any opportunity...to take a break, deliver a message, complete a task.



Yoga asana (postures) abound for opening the hips. To get a safe and full range of options, why not check out a class? I suggest during classes that in order to build a home practice to select just one pose per class and practice it for a week. You'll be amazed out how much you benefit and learn over a steady time frame.



And it might have you saying "hip, hip hooray" for your hips!