How To Improve Hip Flexor Flexibility and Strength to Relieve Low Back Pain FOR GOOD

It's estimated that 84% of adults have had low back pain sometime in their lifetime, and as somebody that has been part of that horrible statistic, I can say how horrible it actually is. It's not fun, and I'm sure some of you guys watching this have had low back pain or may be experiencing it currently. Shortly after my ACL reconstruction about 2 years ago and going through the rehab process, I had started to, you know, reacclimate to walking. And sure, for most of the rehab process, your gait isn't fully normal until, you know, middle to end of the rehab process. So you're limping a little bit, you're not walking totally normal. And over time, what that created was, you know, some compensation in my hips and the way I was walking. And I started to notice some low back pain. And really what I came to find out was that my hip flexors were really tight from not having a full swing in my gait and my normal walking pattern, which was pulling and tugging on my low back. And you're probably thinking, why would the hip flexors be pulling on the low back? And while not all cases of low back pain are caused by tight or weak hip flexors, a lot of them are, which is what we're going to dive into today. So in today's video, I'm going to talk to you guys about what the hip flexors are in the first place and why they get weak or tight, how to test them, and then two of my favorite exercises to really remedy weak or tight hip flexors and relieve your low back pain if that's what's causing it. So what are the hip flexors, you ask? Great question. The hip flexors are a group of muscles located at the front of the hips that allow us to pick up our knees and bend forward at our waist. The group of muscles that makes up the hip flexors are the iliacus, psoas, rectus femoris, and the sartorius muscles. And as you can imagine, they are really needed in a lot of the activities that we do. For example, walking, running, climbing— anything where we're hinging or picking up our knees is, you know, basically going to recruit the hip flexors. So they're included in a lot. But aside from those things, the hip flexors are also really, really important for maintaining proper posture and for actually stabilizing a lot of our spine because the hip flexors actually attach to our pelvis, our femur, and the low part of our spine. And fun fact, the psoas major is actually one of two muscles in the human body that connects the upper body to the lower body. So clearly a very critical muscle. So understandably, the hip flexors are incredibly important to, you know, everyday movement, number one, but also keeping our, you know, low back healthy and pain-free. But how do they become weak or tight? So oftentimes with prolonged periods of sitting, like a lot of us do for jobs, or, you know, just throughout the day, the hip flexors can become tight. They are actually in their shortened position for the most part when you're in a seated position. Therefore, they're not getting elongated. And the second thing, I mean, they get weak because who's going to the gym and really training their hip flexors? I mean, when was the last time you heard somebody at the gym be like, Yeah, nice hip flexors, bruh. Probably never. I mean, I know I haven't done that for anybody, but I think it's really important to train them, and we're going to talk about that. And obviously, when these muscles are weak or tight, this leads to poor posture, restricted range of motion, and of course, low back pain. Weak hip flexors can cause the pelvis to rotate forward, creating an anterior pelvic tilt, and put a lot of extra stress on those low back muscles. While tight hip flexors can put a lot of strain and pull into that lower spine and create a lot of back pain that way. And aside from the potential of nagging low back pain that's irritating throughout the day, if you're an athlete and you have weaker tight hip flexors, you're definitely not going to be able to pick up your legs quick enough to really pick up speed as a sprinter or a sport that requires sprinting or explosive movement. Keeping strong hip flexors is a key to really being able to explode off the ground and lift your leg up fast enough so that you can plant it forward and create forward momentum when sprinting. So if you're in a sport that requires quick bursts of movement, or again, just sprinting flat out, hurdles, things that require you to pick up your feet really quickly, and the better you do that or faster you do that, you know, the better you're going to be in your sport. That's really going to require a lot of hip flexor strength. So the more you train them, the better you're going to be in that sport. Or I should say the better conditioned you should be for that sport. I'm not saying that training your hip flexors is going to magically make you like dunk a basketball out of the blue, but you guys get where I'm going at. So obviously low back pain can be an indicator of your hip flexors being possibly weak or tight, but how do you know which one it is, or if that is actually the case and you would kind of want to eliminate that from being a potential factor? Well, there's two tests you can do. The first test is called the Thomas test, and you're going to start by sitting on the edge of a bench or a table with your feet flat on the floor. You're going to lay back and hug the knees to the chest. Slowly, you're going to release one knee and return towards the starting position with the bottom of the foot flat on the floor. And in order to pass this test, the foot must be able to reach the floor while keeping the other knee hugged tightly to the chest. And then you'll want to make sure to test both sides. So that test in particular is going to test tightness of the hip flexors. The next one we're going to talk about is going to test the strength of your hip flexors. Now, to test the strength of your hip flexors, you're going to start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, raising one knee up and hugging it into the chest. You're going to release your hands from the knee and use the hip flexors to hold the knee in the same position. Passing this test requires that the knee doesn't fall when the hands release, and you're going to want to hold it there for a minimum of 10 seconds. If you can go 10 seconds or longer without that knee falling while you've released the hands, then you pass the test. But if balance is an issue here in this test, just try to hold on to something with one hand and hug the knee with the other hand. Obviously, you want to test both sides as well doing this. So if one of those two things or both of them were hard for you, here's what I'm going to recommend. Now you guys know I'm a Ben Patrick girl through and through, Knees Over Toes program all the way. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can see a whole playlist on my YouTube channel of all my Knees Over Toes videos, but it's a style of training to get full range of motion, all this stuff, and he talks a lot about training your hip flexors. So naturally, these two exercises that I'm going to recommend are going to be Knees Over Toes slash ATG related exercises. Okay, so the first one I'm going to recommend is going to be for if you have tight hip flexors. So this exercise is called the ATG split squat, and you're probably going to need to modify this if you haven't done these before because it does take some time to get used to the full form of the ATG split squat. But there's plenty of ways to modify it depending on what's limiting you. So really what the ATG split squat is, is that you are in a position, you are pretty wide, your feet are pretty wide separated, as if you're going to do a lunge but like a very light wide lunge, and then you're going to drop your weight forward so that you have full hamstring coverage over the calf. Um, your knee is in a full bend, so you're in full flexion on the front knee. And your back leg, basically what you're doing is you're on the toes of the back leg, but you're trying to not drop that knee down. You'll notice when you lift that knee up and you don't give it any leeway to touch the ground, it really stretches that hip flexor. You're going to keep your torso upright, and from there you're going to push back up from that position. Now you don't have to do many sets and reps of these because this is something where in this particular way that I'm recommending it, it's going to be more of a stretch than it is an actual, you know, leg workout. So this might be something where you hold it for, you know, let's say 10 seconds and do it 3 times each side kind of a thing. But it is a really great stretch. And then to modify this, so let's say you try to do that and you just— hip flexor is way too tight, which if you have tight hip flexors, it's going to feel that way anyways. So to modify this for the hip flexor, you can raise and put your front foot up on platform, on a couch, on a chair, and create a little less of that hip flexor stretch that way. Same goes if you have some kind of limitation of range of motion in your knee and that's uncomfortable in your knee, then you can also put an incline up, you know, put your, your front foot on an incline and just gradually start to move into that, that ATG split squat and start to stretch into that hip flexor and gradually decrease the platform size as you start to get more comfortable with the movement. But that's an exceptional one for the hip flexor. and it's something that's also really fantastic for the knee at the same time. So if you're going to do a hip flexor stretch, why not get something that's also going to benefit the knee at the same time? So this next exercise is the one that I recommend if your hip flexors are weak. So this exercise is called the weighted hip flexor lift, and what you're doing is you'll have a weighted apparatus strapped onto one foot, and you are going to be standing straight up, and with the foot that has the weight attached to it, you're going to lift that foot up into the air trying to get the knee at least to hip level, if not higher, and repeat, you know, and letting it drop back down and doing the same thing over again. So lifting that knee back in the air and then eventually switching sides. So if you're doing the ATG program or the Knees Over Toes program, the standard that you're trying to get to is 10% of your body weight for 20 reps per side. And it's very hard. Like, it's, it's hard. I've been at this program for almost a year now And I'm still, I still struggle with this one. And, you know, I've been working my hip flexors. So it is something that, you know, because it's such an undertrained muscle, that it's going to take some time to build that strength. Something I do really love about training my hip flexors with this particular exercise is that, again, you're not just benefiting one thing, you're getting kind of a dual benefit because the standing leg really has to work to balance and stabilize you, and your glute is activated. So you're working multiple muscle groups at the same time. Which for me is a win-win because if I don't have that much time and I want to do some rehab but I also want a little bit of a workout too at the same time, these two exercises can be a great pair. So one of the biggest struggles I used to have with doing this weighted hip flexor lift was like what I should attach onto my foot, and I tried a lot of things. I tried hooking my foot under a kettlebell, but the problem with that is— or even if you use like a resistance loop and you have one foot hooked into the loop, basically the problem with that is you have to flex your foot very, you know, vigorously, which activates the tibs, which is great, but the tibs are a much smaller muscle than the hip flexor group, so it burns out faster. So you're actually burning out your tibs before you even can really work into the hip flexors. So it had its own challenges to it, which is why I'm super grateful that Freak Athlete Essentials actually gifted me one of their TriFlexors. And this made a world of difference because I was able to really securely strap my foot into this device, and it feels like, like my foot's not going anywhere in that thing. So I don't have to worry about flexing my foot up or fatiguing out my tibs and the front of my shins, which is really nice. And I can load up the weight that I feel like I need is appropriate for my hip flexor and not worry about my tibs tiring out. And something else that I really love about the Triflexor is that I can use it for a bunch of different exercises, not just the weighted hip flexor lifts. Uh, it really has these cool attachment pieces on the sides and the front, so you can use it for tib raises, you can use it for hamstring curls, you can use it for donkey kicks, you can use it for even leg extensions. So there's a multitude of ways that you can use this single device, which is really great because you guys know me at this point. I live in a small apartment space. I love multi-purpose equipment and things that can be used in multiple ways. It's just, it makes me so happy and just to kind of save space. So the Triflexor is just so great. It is wonderful. I'm so excited to have that. And Freak Athlete Essentials was kind enough to give me a discount code to share with you guys if you were interested in getting your own Triflexor, which you can order in the link down in the description and use code Victoria KORIYA20 for 20% off. So thank you again to Freak Athlete Essentials for the TriFlexor. I am super stoked to keep using that and to getting my hip flexors super strong so I can be super fast and avoid low back pain again, because I definitely do not want that ever again. Um, and I plan to keep my hip flexors nice and happy, and you guys should too. So guys, at the end of the day, I really do believe that these two exercises made a huge impact in getting my low back pain to go away. Uh, I started this program, you know, when I was experiencing this low back pain in hopes that would help not only my knee recover from, you know, ACL surgery, but also would help my low back pain be resolved. And it did. And I do believe that these were the two exercises that made the biggest impact on that. So I highly recommend you trying them if you are experiencing low back pain and doing those tests and seeing, you know, what's your case, because everybody's different. And it is important, you know, if you are really concerned about your low back pain to see a doctor to see somebody that can check that out or a physical therapist. But this is just something you can start with to kind of rule out if it is the hip flexors and then kind of move forward from there. All right, you guys, I hope you enjoyed this video. And if you did, go ahead and give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I greatly appreciate it. And I will see you guys next time. Bye.