Your hip flexors are on the front of your hips, and one of their main jobs is to flex the hips. This means bringing your knee up towards your chest and bending at the waist. This is exactly what you do when you move through the squatting movement. The primary hip flexor muscles include the rectus femoris, iliacus, psoas, iliocapsularis, and sartorius. These muscles and other functions contribute to flexing the hip joint.
When we sit, our hip flexors get short and tight and can become painful. You may also get sore hip flexors from bad posture, certain exercises, running, biking, and walking. Hip flexor strain can also occur from too much using your hip flexor muscles and tendons. The muscles and tendons become sore, inflamed, and painful. This is why stretching out or rolling your hip flexors is so important.
Hip Flexor Pain
Pain in the hip flexors can range from mild to severe and impact how well you can move. Addressing hip flexor pain as soon as it arises is important to avoid worsening your symptoms. Actual tears in the hip flexor can create what is called hip flexor strain. Strain in your hip flexors can include: pain coming on suddenly, increasing pain when you lift your thigh toward your chest, pain when you stretch your hip flexor muscles, muscle spasms, tenderness on the front of your hip, and even swelling or bruising at the hip or thigh area. Individuals more likely to experience hip flexor strain include cyclists, dancers, martial artists, kickers on football teams, soccer players, step aerobics participants, and athletes who jump or run while performing high knee kicks.
In this video, I want to show you what to do about hip flexor pain when squatting. The exercise we will do is foam rolling out your hip flexors.
CLICK HERE to watch the YouTube video.
I will get Andrea to demonstrate.
Get on the floor with a full foam roller. Have the foam roller start at about your hip joint. Roll from your hip to above the knee, then roll back down. Use a nice controlled movement, looking at doing 5 to 10 repetitions. Start with five and see how it feels. Go through the squatting movement after the rolling and see how your hip flexors feel. If they feel better, continue and do ten repetitions.
Make sure to swing by ExercisesforInjuries.com. Enter your injury or pain into the search bar on the top right of the home page. There is a good chance that I have an article, a video, or an interview that will help you overcome your injury or pain.
Take care!
Rick Kaselj, MS
If you want to instantly release your hip flexors for more strength, better health, and all-day energy, click here to check out the Unlock Your Hip Flexors program.
