Do’s & Don’t’s for Better Hip Stability
Check out these techniques for building hip stability and strength.
Whether you’re a seasoned athlete or just a beginner yogi, it’s important to have stability in your hips. The primary job of the hips is to support our lower limbs, stabilize our upper body, and absorb shock from movements like running and jumping. Basically, if you lack stability and strength in your hips, your whole body may feel a bit out of whack!
Yoga poses that involve standing and balancing can build up the strength and stability you need in your hips. Take a look at the common yoga poses below that can be used to do just that.
By Jenni Tarma
Mountain Pose
Back to basics! Symmetry in the hips is key for maintaining good range of motion, and this easy variation on Mountain Pose makes it easy to identify weakness on either side. Stand with one foot on a block and the other floating.
DON’T let the hip of the standing leg sag out to the side.
DO strongly engage the outer hip of the standing leg to bring the pelvis level. It’s useful to place the hands on the hips for reference; I also like to visualize the front points of my pelvis lining up horizontally.
Repeat a couple of times on each leg, noting whether one side is having to work harder than the other.
Tree Pose
This takes our work in Tadasana one step further. As easy as Tree Pose seems to more experienced yogis, there is a lot to work on here in terms of hip stability.
DON’T let your gluteus medius get lazy and let the standing leg hip sag out to the side.
DO Bring the pelvis level, find Tadasana again on the standing leg side: Gather the hip to the midline (activating gluteus medius) and press evenly through the standing foot. Ungrip the standing leg toes, and feel an active line of energy moving up from the arch of the foot to the inner groin. The actions of simultaneously rooting down and lifting up help support the engagement in the hip; the overall sensation is one of sitting “higher” in the joint, as opposed to sinking into it.
Crescent Lunge
Try repeating the actions you learned in the last two poses to activate your gluteus medius for more stability in a High Lunge.
DON’T let the hip of your front leg pop out to the side.
DO engage the gluteus medius by firmly pinning the hip towards the midline of the body and drawing the thighbone back into the hip socket (I was once cued to imagine crushing a clove of garlic inside my hip joint—unusual, but effective!). From here, feel the the hip of the front leg rolling down towards the ground; next, attempt to drag the feet away from each other to widen the inner thighs, allow the lower back to lengthen and the tailbone to drop slightly.
Notice if it’s harder to maintain this alignment on one side than the other.
Side-Lying Hip Abduction
Once you’ve found the work of the gluteus medius in a few common standing poses, you can do more to strengthen and balance it.
The key to this leg lift is to move slowly and maintain the muscular engagement, rather than relying on momentum to swing the leg up. On the way down, keep the outer hip engaged, resisting gravity as you slowly lower the leg. The muscles can start to fatigue pretty quickly here, letting you know you’re doing it right.
Again, take the time to notice if one side has more power than the other. Keep building strength in the weaker hip, working toward a feeling of evenness on both sides of the pelvis.
All images courtesy of Carmine Sarazen.
