If you’ve ever caught yourself stretching your hip flexors on repeat and wondering why they still feel tight, you’re not alone. I've caught myself recommending a myofascial release anytime someone said they had “tight hip flexors”, but while those are great for a quick bit of pain/sensation relief, the next part is key.

Most of the time, it’s not about flexibility at all. That tight feeling? I think it's often your hip flexors waving a red flag—they’re tired, weak, or working overtime to compensate for something else.

So, before you jump into another stretch, ask yourself:

• Are my hips pulling double duty because other muscles aren’t doing their job?
• Could they actually be weak instead of tight?

Here’s a little reframe: think of it like a glass of water—if their capacity is like a bigger glass, even when it’s half full, it feels lighter and easier to manage. When your hip flexors are working well, everything else gets better too—running, cycling, even sitting at your desk feels easier.

Here’s what I’m experimenting with for hip flexors lately:

• Posture and neutral hip: Some of the hip flexors attach to your pelvis and can influence where your hip gets pulled. Imagine your pelvis as a bowl of water: if it’s tilted too far forward (anterior tilt) or backward (posterior tilt), that water spills. Finding neutral means keeping the bowl steady, which lets your hip flexors work efficiently without strain. A “neutral hip” doesn’t mean you’re locked into a rigid position though—I would like you to be able to move between the extremes. To help people find neutral as a starting point, assuming their balance has been out of whack, I like something like THIS exercise to give them more awareness and strength in neutral.
• Supine hip flexion: THIS one is super accessible if you have a mini band at home and is actually quite hard. While it lacks some of the eccentric control through the long ranges like THIS exercise has, it makes up for it in combining posture control and neutral hip with a great way to overload the hip flexor.
• Middle quad muscle strength (rec fem): Using MonkeyFeet, THIS exercise targets the rectus femoris quad/hip flexor muscle intensely. Try this out with NO weight first. I was cramping hard with the weight on my foot.
• Dynamic hip flexor strength: Building up to a weight bearing hip flexor exercise is a great bridge between strength and real life positions like running. Something like THIS exercise fits well here. You can hold onto something on a more "strength" day to load it heavier, or go for balance and higher rep on a "capacity" lift day.
• Plyometrics: After filming 360 plyometric shots with our videographer in October, I've been experimenting with them a lot as a final progression for people with hip flexor weakness. Here's a few examples: a Light Tier, a Medium Tier, a Deep Tier, and a Ping Tier that I might build someone up to in the final rehab phases once they've nailed POSTURE and STRENGTH.

Last week we put out a reel with a few more hip flexor exercises if you're interested.... click below:

And a more detailed blog on Hip Flexor Tightness HERE. Hip Foundations can help, HERE.
​
Let me know how this email finds you! Reply here if you need anything (I reply 100% of the time).

Yours in physiology,

Carla