Three Things Your Hips and Lower Back Will Thank You For

Whether it’s in response to hours spent sitting, rigours of sport or just hard booty shaking on the boogie floor- your hips cop a beating. They may be stiff, they may be sore, maybe even loosely goosey resulting in pain.

The beauty of healthy and strong hips is the positive benefits that flow up and down the body. Stability at the hips, notably around your gluteus muscles will add support to the lower back which means less aches and pains. Too often we will a sore lower back and treat the symptom as the problem when more often than not the pain is the symptom and the problem is above or below.

If the lower back gets some support above a healthy set of hips- if we travel down those same healthy hips are going to take a load of stress off the knees too. How so? Well, your butt muscles act as a stabiliser to the knee through prevent the knees collapsing inward. Another example of pain not being the problem, rather a symptom and the problem this time comes from above.

There are a million things that can have the potential to run your hips through the ringer, here we are going to look at three things you can do that your hips will thank you for. They are simple. More often than not free. Most importantly they are effective.

1.    The Couch Stretch

If you’ve not experienced the couch stretch before, allow me to introduce you to one of the worst and best things for you. Worst because, although the name of the stretch sounds like you’re flopped on the couch, bowl of popcorn on the stomach and deep in a Netflix series- the actual reality is a fairly aggressive stretch through some of the hip flexor muscles and notably the outer quadriceps.

These muscles are capable of causing discomfort through the lower back or the knee by either pulling the hips into a less than favourable position or impact the way your knee cap moves when you move.

Here’s an example of what the couch stretch looks like

If flexibility isn’t your jam and this is a stretch you haven’t yet experienced then brace yourself, you’re likely to hurl profanity out into the sky or anybody within screaming distance. For ideal results you want a little discomfort but it shouldn’t be so painful that you’re left with little choice but to tense up and fight the stretch which in reality defeats the purpose of stretching in the first place.

Time wise, I believe within reason there isn’t a time too long to spend in the couch stretch- it just comes down to intensity. I usually recommend for people needing to loosen these muscles spending anywhere from 90 seconds up to two or three minutes. It’s going to take a little time to get settled and then pay attention to your breathing, slow in, hold it for a second then slower on the exhale. Do this two or three times a week and it won’t take long until you find yourself getting a little more movement and more comfortable movement at that around the hips, knee and lower back. 

2. Sit, Stand or Move?

It’s human nature to find the easy way of doing things, this leading to sitting down for hours and hours per day until we found that our hips, our backs, our knees all began to pay the price.

We learnt and adapted. In came the sit/stand desk and those maiden voyagers into stand up desks wore the quizzical looks with a smug grin knowing there were benefits to be had in their new fancy desk.

With the rise of standing desks, users began to do exactly that. Stand. In the one spot. Standing for hours. Then came a whole new host of issues for the back, the hips and more as we yet again went all human on the new desk, we found the energy conserving, slouched postures.

You can forget about the fear mongering headlines you’ve probably seen such as “sitting is worse for you than smoking” and just keep things simple. Moving seems to be, believe it or not a pretty good thing. That may be moving between, sitting, standing and throwing a few steps in between the two or moving to the other end of the movement spectrum and exercising. It could be a lunch time walk, a pre work stretch or a workout in the afternoon.

Regardless of your stance on sitting or standing it seems being stationary all day isn’t that great for your body- in particular your hips and surrounding areas.

3. Strengthen Your Core

I know, I know- this was meant to be all about the hips and here we are now talking about the core. The further you dive into “getting to know your body” the more you start to realise the entire thing is linked which at first makes everything confusing and with further study all starts to make sense.

Without going too deep, the core and several muscles around the hips (in particular the psoas major) act to stabilise the spine. If one is weak, the other tends to pick up the slack and in the instance of a weak core the psoas major tends to pull tight and cause lower back pain or weakness around the hips.

Although this isn’t to say that one set of sit ups and your psoas will pop out giving you a thumbs up and saying “thanks mate” but there are exercises that when added to your training program over a period of time will make a big difference.

When it comes to this particular problem- the big boss of back pain Dr Stuart McGill (not the spin bowler!) has what he refers to as the “Big Three”. They are as follows:

·       Curl Up

·       Side Plank

·       Bird Dogs

 Here is a video from the man himself and his impeccable moustache, explaining how they are done.

As mentioned in the very beginning, these three tips are simple, very effective and don’t cost you a cent. It’s important that you look after your hips, as it should be for any joint but the hips especially. Why? By now you should recognise that when the hips are out of alignment problems surface both above and below the hips.

Have any further questions about your hips? Drop them in the comment section below.