My morning routine always includes hip opening stretches poses
It’s said in yoga, that hips are the storage room for negative feelings and emotions, especially ones that are related to control. Hip opening poses don’t only provide release of physical tension but could also provide an emotional or energetic release. Hip opening yoga creates space for new beginnings. Hips openers give us the opportunity to find freedom in our bodies and in our expression.
What exactly does that mean? If we have tight hips, are we emotionally imbalanced? Do our tight hips tell us something about our ability to communicate and to express our emotions? Maybe. Or maybe we run too much or it’s our bones structures.
There are over 20 muscles that cross the hip, the adductors and the abductors, the hip flexors including the iliac and psoas major muscles, also known as your iliopsoas, the rectus femoris, which is part of your quadriceps, and more. So we can consider any yoga poses that stretch these muscles as “hip openers.”
Practicing hip opening yoga poses has many benefits.
Tightness in the hips can affect everything from our life movements as picking up something off the floor, to our ability to get into simple yoga poses such as Sukasana (The easy pose). Yoga poses for hips improves range of motion and circulation, and decreases the load on the spine, lessening overuse and resultant back pain.
Hip openers are vigorous poses, both physically and emotionally. Always listen to your heart and body to practice the poses that work best for you. Have fun and play!
Let’s have looked at the Yoga poses for hips I include in my Morning Routine.
Because sometimes my emotions can drive me crazy and that’s also helping me with my final meditation to set up my day.
Downward Dog Split
Press your hands firmly into the floor, draw the navel firmly into the spine, and reach the bottom heel into the ground. This will begin to stretch out the backs of the calves and the hamstrings while beginning to warm up the hips.
Downward Dog Split Variation
Bend the lifted knee and open the hip, root the bottom heel firmly toward the floor. This will begin to open the hip flexor to prepare it for some of the deeper postures.
Runner’s Lunge
From the previous pose, bring your lifted leg in between your hands, front knee bend to 90 degrees aligns with your ankle, so the toes are visible. Lengthen and engage the extended leg. Release tension in the neck by positioning it straight, lengthen the spine.
Crescent / Low Lunge
Bring the back knee to the floor and extend the arms overhead. Engage and Draw in the lower belly to protect the spine. Begin to sink down into the hip while simultaneously engaging the abdomen.
Pigeon Pose, My Favorite!
Bring the right knee close to your right wrist just behind and slightly to the right, shin on a diagonal, and the right heel pointing toward the right hip bone. Roll the back leg inward so that the leg is in a “neutral” position. The purpose is to have your hip bones square toward the front of the mat.
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