Happy hips?

Lots of us have grumbles with our hips from time to time, often made worse by driving, cold weather, illness or other unavoidable aspects of life. Stretching our hips safely can really help to ease stiffness. But not all yoga is great for all of our respective hips. Here are some resources that to help you with moving your hips safely in yoga practices and daily life.

Firstly, a photo series of stretches to help with hip pain. These clear verbal and visual instructions are from Yoga Beyond The Studio, using a block to aid alignment and strength-building. If you find an exercise that you like in this selection, try adding it into your daily routine after a walk or other warm-up activity. Then try another exercise the following week. With this approach, 30 seconds each day can really make a positive difference.

Next up is a 3-minute read from YogaU which explores why the language frequently used around hip movement in yoga is problematic and why we all need to move within our SAFE range of motion, not our FULL range of motion. There’s a great diagram to show how the hips interact with other parts of the body.

Finally, this 5-minute read from Shut Up and Yoga is a great combination of anatomy information and exercises, including some different options to those in the first article. This piece explains how our hips function and why we need to protect them in yoga poses. There’s also a helpful diagram to get you think about where we require stability and mobility in the body.

If you like the content I’ve shared here, please follow these yoga teachers on social media and subscribe to their newsletters. It’s so valuable to learn from a range of people who communicate clearly and care about accessibility to yoga. And let me know which exercises or explanations make a different to YOUR yoga experience!