Are you always complaining of tight and restrictive hips, and constantly needing to stretch?
Perhaps you’re dissatisfied with your current ability to perform daily activities like playing with the kids, tying your shoelaces, driving a car, playing the sport that you love or simply trying to relax and watch a movie?
“I just can’t seem to tie my shoelaces or put my pants on as easily anymore”. This is a phrase I hear way too much for my liking! If a small daily living activity like this is a struggle, how is your body meant to perform at its best while at work or chasing after the kids?
Our approach looks at your body as a whole and provides a direct solution to reducing your hip tightness. Unlike other treatments that only focus on one aspect of your body, our approach is easy to follow and aims to address your underlying issue.
Tip No. 1 – Improve Your Strength
“Chiropractic showed to increase muscle strength by 6-8% post treatment.”
The research author that discovered this amazing statistic also compared another research paper where they were comparing three weeks of strength training to three weeks of endurance training on individuals’ strength. “The results of 1 chiropractic visit were almost identical to three weeks of strength training”.
Strength and flexibility are interconnected aspects of health. Building strength in the muscles surrounding your hips will provide better support, allowing for improved range of motion and flexibility. When muscles are strong and well-conditioned, they are better able to relax and elongate during stretching exercises.
We improve your strength by identifying your weaknesses with specific orthopaedic and neurological testing. From there, we apply our specific muscle strengthening technique and chiropractic adjustments.
Tip No. 2 – Sit Correctly
One of the biggest contributors to tight, painful, and restrictive hips is sitting in poor positions for a prolonged period of time.
Sit with your hips higher than you knees!
If there’s one take-home from this blog, always remember to have your hips higher than your knees when sitting. Do you need to always have my back perfectly straight?
The simple answer is no!
Your body is incredibly clever, and your spine has curves that support you to bend and move. Holding yourself rigid for long periods of time can actually contribute to back pain, not resolve it. On your chair, feel both sitting bones on the seat. You don’t need to be upright like a monk, you can slouch. Avoid crossing your legs across the midline.
Tip No. 3 – Improve Low Back Alignment
Did you know the nerves that control your hips actually come from your lower back?
When the wifi isn’t working on your phone, is it usually something to do with your phone or is it the communication box that has slowed down or is dysfunctional? Similarly in our body, when there is added pressure on our nerves, it can slow down our communication from our brain to our muscles.
By improving your alignment in your low back, you will reduce the pressure on your nerves, therefore improving your communication to those stubborn tight hips.
Tip No. 4 – Improve Pelvic Alignment
Muscle weakness can lead to tightness due to imbalanced forces around joints. We call this muscle inhibition. When opposing muscles lack strength, the stronger muscles overpower their counterparts, causing them to contract excessively.
This imbalance results in reduced joint mobility, strained connective tissues, and a sensation of tightness in the affected muscle groups. A holistic healthcare approach emphasises mind-body balance.
We consider our pelvis to be our body’s foundation, and often find imbalances in the pelvis that have been missed that stretching and triggering alone won’t fix. By correcting these missed imbalances within the pelvis, this will allow for a strong foundation and those tight hips can begin to unlock.
Investing in your nervous system and spine today means investing in your long-term health, and that’s where I can help!
Book An Appointment
If you have any questions on this topic, please call us on (07) 3357 3366 or alternatively, you can book an appointment at Blue Align Chiropractic.
We’d love to help you experience better health.
References:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29327170/
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389925/
link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00221-014-4193-5
