Hip/thigh stretches for runners? Or exercises?

Lietchi

After a few years of running with zero stretching (yes, bad, I know ) I'm starting to get some minor complaints. Not while running, but in daily life.
My hips can be a bit stiff (especially my right side) and my range of motion is quite poor.

My squat depth is ludicrous without propping my heels up.
Butterfly pose is very uncomfortable now (as a teenager I could lower my knees fully and bend forward till my nose touched my feet!).

Any particular stretches you recommend as a fellow runner or someone who has/had similar issues as me?
Or perhaps I need some strengthening exercises to complement my running?

claireychn074

I’ll try to describe one of my faves (always difficult without a picture or video!).

If you have a box or high bench (or use some dining chairs together), lie on your back and shuffle until your bum is hanging off the bench, but your back and head are on it. Bring both knees into your chest, then keep hold of one whilst you slowly allow the other leg to straighten down off the bench. You need to be far enough hanging over so that your leg can fall down (hope that makes sense). You also need to be high enough that your leg doesn’t touch the ground. If you find yourself sliding then use one hand to hold the bench.

It stretches the hip flexors and I find my range of mobility increases a lot by holding the stretch. I hold for c30-60 seconds on each side and I have seen people weight their hips or legs, but I’ve never tried that.

Djproulx

A couple stretches come to mind: 1) The runners lunge and 2) the 90/90 stretch. Runners lunge helps open the hip flexors and the 90/90 works on hip mobility since you're using a different plane of motion.

Bridges also help quite a bit, either banded or not. They force the glute muscles to "get in the game".

CaffeinatedConfectionist

Lietchi wrote: »

Any particular stretches you recommend as a fellow runner or someone who has/had similar issues as me?
Or perhaps I need some strengthening exercises to complement my running?

I am another person who ran for years without sufficient stretching, and I too got myself into trouble. In my case, it was my calves, especially after I started doing a high impact step class at the gym recently.

My favorites are the standard hamstring and quad stretches, as well as figure 4, hip flexor, runners, and Achilles stretches.

But I will throw in a quick plug for yoga - what *really* helped with recovery, flexibility, and mobility was tacking on a short yoga session to the end of my runs. Yoga has helped tremendously with my overall flexibility and range of motion, as well as improving balance and unilateral stability. My favorite yoga poses for running are pigeon, lizard, triangle, forward folds, happy baby, and downward dog (and probably lots I'm forgetting). I follow Yoga by Adriene videos on YouTube - she has videos specifically for running or for hips, hamstrings, etc, but I have found full body yoga workouts to be more beneficial. I don't know about you, but my back can get tight from running as well.

But also, yes, strength training! As with regular yoga, unilateral work in lifting has helped me address imbalances in strength and has strengthened tendons and connective tissue as well as the more obvious benefits. Plus I am better about stretching after lifting than after running, so that helps.

ninerbuff

Whatever stretching you do, it should be dynamic stretching before a run, and static stretching after. NEVER static stretch as a warm up.


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KarenSmith2018

Ill be the voice of strength work. Since I've added regular lifting focusing on quads calves and hamstrings I'm more resilient. Then I'll echo the others in terms of pigeon, Happy baby, low lunges, some supine twists, cobra and downward dog

Sinisterbarbie1

I will advocate for a class of Pilates thrown into the mix on rest days/cross training days. I used to do yoga but I wasn’t flexible enough/didn’t have focused enough instructors so i switched to Pilates - especially reformer/tower because it forces more focus on form and generally has smaller classes. Depending on your gym it could be extra/not available as a group class. I currently go to a dedicated studio where group sessions are 20/session. I don’t run anymore but when I did it also helped tremendously with avoiding back issues and i believe helped me avoid injuries overall because it diid so much to strengthen my core and improve my posture and running form. Flexibility comes over time, but the strength improvements to tiny muscles that I wasn’t using enough to support and balance came very quickly.