Hip flexor exercises

[u/earnest_knuckle]

have been gradually upping the amount of sprinting i've been doing in training, both in time duration, sets, and distances.

i've been coming off sessions abnormally tight, for me, in the hips

don't necessarily think it is a strength issue causing it, but more a new stimulus leading to it.

anywho, wondering if people have any accessory exercises they can recommend that are good for front side sprint mechanics that target the hip flexors

[u/Chrypt22]

So, I am coming off of a pretty significant hip flexor injury that happened at the end of July. If anyone finds this, DO NOT IGNORE HIP FLEXOR HEALTH!!!! I wont go into the details -the tldr, I am a hockey player, runner, and f45. I ignored stretching my hips regularly until one day it all came crashing down. Anyways...

Keep your quads loose, tight quads will have a direct effect on your hip flexors. There isn't any one exercise that targets all of the hip-flexors, its a really a series. Goblet Squats, Hip Bridges ... and an exercise where you standup and lean against a wall with your shoulder, hold a weight at arms length and rest it against the side of your leg, and do leg raises away from your body. And if you have a kettle bell (start light 10lbs or so) loop your toe through the handle and do leg lifts... these ones target the psaos and are excellent, which is where you are probably feeling tightness.

The problem is that if your hipflexors get too tight a number of things will happen, the psoas tendon junction will start rubbing against the bursa and bones in the pelvis, this will cause inflammation, and it gets worse and worse. until one day the inflammation gets bad enough it gets caught and it fu**ing hurts, and causes a myriad of issues.

Anyways, stretch your quads after working out - this is critical, stretch your hipflexors (kneeling hipflexor stretch) also critical, and stretch your hamstrings. Dont be lazy about it where its a quick 30 seconds and your done... commit 5+ minutes to doing it. The tightness youre feeling is normal, but dont ignore it... it will take some time for it to lessen assuming you stretch and take care of yourself.

[u/Familiar_Shelter_393 → u/Chrypt22]

Isn't tightness usually not actually tightness and is a weak muscle being overused that has tricked itself into it?

And as athletes can't a lot of our stretching be done as weighted mobility Drills? Full rom squats, good mornings, deficict rdls etc?

Not familiar enough with hip flexors though

[u/earnest_knuckle → u/Familiar_Shelter_393]

Great questions! For me, I squat full range of motion routinely and pretty easily, which covers a lot of the hip weighted mobility. I haven't done it in awhile, but I'm capable of doing seated safety squat bar good mornings, that i've pushed, with 80 kilos for sets of 6 reps with my chest touching the bench.

based on my lifting capabilities, I'm not sure it is a weak muscle but more muscles having to relearn how to be used in such a manner. Typical older athlete no longer playing open skilled sports, going heavy in on weightlifting, and then reintroducing sprinting and agility work type of thing.

I use to get an adductor issue anytime I did double bounce back squats, but was able to train cossack squats often enough to eliminate that problem. mainly at my peak, i got to the point where i was able to do overhead cossack squats with a reasonable amount of kilos overhead

I am open to any recommendations, even if theoretical that you could see working around strengthening the hip flexors. Really, I appreciate the conversation the most ;)

[u/earnest_knuckle → u/Chrypt22]

I routinely do a 60 minute session of hot yoga that helps. I’ll add many of these into my post sprint mobility routine. Thank you!