In “Out of Kilter II,” Ian King describes his number one hip flexor stretch for the average person.
Has anyone tried this? It stretches my quads, but I don’t feel it in my hips? Any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong? Thanks in advance.
In faith,
Sam
bump
worth a shot…
One of the quadriceps muscle also serves in hip flexion.
When you extend your hip as in a hip flexor stretch and flex your knee, as in Ian’s version of the stretch, this will cause your rectus femoris (a quadriceps muscle) to be stretched since it crosses over the hip joint as well as the knee joint.
If you feel you’re a only getting a stretch in your quads this means you have inflexible quads (specifically the rectus femoris).
For you to adequately stretch your hip flexors right now you should just perform an ordinary kneeling hip flexor stretch, which is just like the one Ian describes, but not placing your back foot up on a bench.
On top of this you should also work on your quad flexibility since your rectus femoris is already inflexible. You can use any quad stretch that you are comfortable with right now; however, conciously try to extend your hip back which will stretch your rectus femoris more.
Thanks Chris
This is a common experience. Use PNF stretching (contract-relax methond) to loosen your quads prior to stretching the hip flexors… this will ensure that the quads are not a limiting factor in your hip flexor stretch
I wouldn’t be doing the stretch correctly if I didn’t have Ian’s stretching video.
Lucky me. 