Why are your Hips So Tight & How Can I Relieve the Tension for Good?
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Tight hips can be a frustrating issue that limits how you move. For example, you might struggle to sit cross-legged, get up from a chair, or walk. If these challenges sound familiar, why are your hips so tight? If so, you’re not alone. Countless people experience hip tightness, so if you're one of them, you can take comfort in knowing that there are ways to relieve the discomfort and improve your overall mobility. Understanding how to measure flexibility can also help you track your progress as you work on loosening up your hips and improving your range of motion. In this article, we'll explore why hip tightness occurs, why it matters, and how to relieve it so you can get back to doing the things you love.
Pliability’s mobility app can help you reach your goals by providing you with the tools to improve your flexibility and movement. The best part? You can access Pliability’s routines and programs right on your smartphone for quick and easy use at home or on the go.
Why Are your Hips so Tight and What to Do About it
Hip tightness is one of the most frustrating issues one can experience. It can disturb your focus during the day, make sleeping uncomfortable, and make it hard to move and exercise – leaving you drained of energy. It turns out, tight hips are one of the most common complaints physical therapists get. “The ligaments stiffen up and don’t allow for much movement, and then that leads to the muscles and cascades from there,” says Stephen Herbener, DPT, a physical therapist with the Cleveland Clinic, explaining what happens in the joint when it feels “tight.”
When those muscle fibers in the hips don’t have enough length to contract adequately, they aren’t able to function properly, adds Haley Harrison, DPT, OCS, CSCS, physical therapist and owner of Empower Physical Therapy and Performance in Massachusetts. This can make it uncomfortable to stand or walk or even sit in certain positions.
Can tight hips cause pain in other areas?
Your hips are extremely important to how the rest of your body functions.
Can tight hips cause back pain?
If your hips are tight in the front, they can cause you to bend forward slightly at the lower back all day. It may be hardly noticeable at first, but it comes on slowly.
What about knee pain?
If there are tight muscles in your hips, there are also WEAK muscles in your hip. The weakness in the deep stabilizer muscles means that your femur (thigh bone) moves around too much. This can cause other muscles, like your quads and hamstrings, to be overactive. This causes a variety of knee issues.
Can tight hips cause ankle pain?
Foot pain? Yes and yes. The instability at your hips can make your calves tighten up to try to help you balance better.
Have any trouble balancing on one leg?
Go ahead…try it. There's a stability issue if it doesn’t seem as effortless as when you were in your 20s. You should be able to stand straight up, without leaning over the leg you’re standing on.
What about shoulder pain?
Again, it’s a yes here. Tight hips cause your entire spine to move differently. Some muscles attach your pelvis to your shoulder. When the hips move differently, those effects are also felt up the chain.
What Causes Tight Hips?
But what are we all doing that’s making our hips so tight? With many possible culprits, figuring out what’s behind your tight hips can feel a little like solving a whodunnit, and the answers can sometimes be surprising.
1. Too Much Time Spent Seated
Dr. Harrison says it’s not unusual for people like me to find their hip flexors in the front of the pelvis get creaky at the end of a workday. When our hip joints are bent for hours, these muscles shorten up. “A lack of movement just really, really puts you at more risk for those tight hips,” Dr. Herbener says.
How to treat and prevent it:
If your hips are tight from sitting, you’ll want to work some stretches into your daily routine. In particular, Dr. Harrison recommends a standing or kneeling quad stretch. She also recommends the couch stretch, in which you get into a half-kneeling position with the back foot propped against a couch or chair. Whichever move you prefer, hold it for 30 to 60 seconds to allow the muscle tissue to lengthen.
Be sure to get up and moving regularly. “I always encourage folks with desk jobs to explore the idea of a standing desk, or a desk that adjusts up and down,” Dr. Harrison says. “Or simply set a timer because it’s so easy to get into the groove of working and all of a sudden three hours have passed by and we haven’t stood once.” Dr. Herbener adds that if you need to be in a chair, choose one higher off the ground to keep your hips in a more lengthened position rather than a seat that has you scrunched up. “If you’re lower to the floor, that means that you’re bending your hips more,” he says. “I generally tell folks to stay in a more 90-degree position at the hips, if not a little bit higher than 90 degrees.”
2. A Predisposition To Tight Muscles
Depending on your collagen type, you may be prone to having tight muscles, including in the hips. “Some people just tend to have less range of motion through the hip joint and need to do a little bit more maintenance,” Dr. Harrison says.
How to treat and prevent it:
Suppose you know your muscles are prone to stiffening up. In that case, Dr. Harrison recommends proactively doing mobility drills before your workouts to keep your body looser:
“Things like bodyweight squats in which you’re moving through the full ranges of motion,” she says.
After your workout, dedicate some time during your cooldown to prolonged stretching (holding positions for 30 to 60 seconds) to lengthen the tissues. (Try these designated stretches for tight hips!)
3. A Limiting Hip Socket
If you try to lift your leg as high as you can in yoga class but find it nowhere near your neighbor’s, the shape of your hip socket could be the culprit. “A lot of folks have sockets that are constructed differently, so they’re not going to have that range of motion that others may have because the socket wraps around the joint a little bit more,” Dr. Herbener says. “They’re just born with tighter hips anatomically.”
How to treat and prevent it:
If you’ve got this kind of hip socket, a professional ballet career may not be in your cards. But you can work closely with a physical therapist to prevent the impingement from causing pain.
“The right kind of movement is super important,” Dr. Herbener says. “We work on a lot of strengthening and keeping that nice and loose joint.”
4. A Tilted Posture
“Certain pelvic positions are going to shorten the front of the hip a little bit more,” Dr. Harrison says. In particular, if your pelvis naturally tilts forward when you stand, you’re more likely to wind up with tight hip flexors.
How to treat and prevent it:
For a tilted pelvis, you’ll want to find length in the hip flexors through moves like quad stretches and kneeling lunges. You’ll also need to work extra hard to maintain that length through core and glute strengthening to help keep your hips in a more neutral position.
“If you’re lengthening one side of a joint, you want to strengthen the opposite side to help maintain mobility,” Dr. Harrison says.
5. An Uneven Pelvis
Believe it or not, most of us have legs that are two different lengths. And sometimes, that can put the pelvis in a more vulnerable position, making the hip muscles tighten in response.
How to treat and prevent it:
If a leg length discrepancy isn’t causing you any problems, there’s no need to worry about it. But if it’s messing with your hips, Dr. Herbener says a physical therapist can assess you and offer specific exercises to help level out the pelvis and keep your hips in a straighter position.
A PT can also provide practical tips to offset the strain of walking and standing at an angle. “They can alter the seated position [so you] sit on a little bit of an angle to readjust the pelvis into a more neutral position and just avoid any tightening that way,” he says.
6. Weak Core Muscles
When our core isn’t up to snuff, we’re more likely to slouch, which strains our hip flexors. “A weak core and tight hip flexors go hand in hand,” Dr. Herbener says. This can also lead to low back pain.
How to treat and prevent it:
The prescription in this case is a regular dose of core strengthening exercises. Whether you prefer bird dogs or planks, make them an ongoing part of your routine. Dr. Herbener also recommends looking at the ergonomics of your work setup if you’re required to sit for your job.
“[The key] will be core strengthening, but also translating that to all-day activities, making sure that [people are] sitting upright in the most advantageous position for them,” he says.
7. Neural Tension In The Back Of The Hips
It’s not always the front of your hips that’s the problem. If you’re experiencing tightness in the back of the hips, and you keep stretching your hamstrings over and over to loosen it up but aren’t seeing any success, you could be experiencing what’s called neural tension.
“The nerve is actually the culprit and [it] needs to be mobilized,” Dr. Harrison says. This happens when the nerve doesn’t slide within your tissues the way it’s supposed to and is getting stretched instead.
How to treat and prevent it: If you suspect a nerve might be causing your tight hips, see a physical therapist who can tease out where exactly your pain is coming from. Treatment might involve massage, joint mobilization, movements encouraging the nerve to glide better, or mobility exercises.
8. Stored Trauma
When we experience a threat, our nervous system goes into fight-or-flight mode, which affects us physically. “It pumps cortisol through the body and prepares your muscles to go into action to protect you particularly the psoas in preparation for either kicking or running with your legs,” says licensed clinical psychologist Arielle Schwartz, PhD.
Because most of us never actually have to fight or flee to protect ourselves physically, the tension never gets released, and our hips (where the psoas runs through) can end up suffering months and years later because of it. (FYI: There’s much more to learn about why we hold trauma in our hips.)
How to treat and prevent it:
The best way to release this tension is to get moving. That could be through swimming, cycling, hiking, or whatever brings motion back to the area. There are also more targeted somatic release techniques and hip-opening postures like pigeon pose. However, Dr. Schwartz, a yoga teacher practicing somatic psychology for three decades, warns that you must pace yourself.
“It can feel overwhelming,” she says. “In somatic psychology, we talk about something called titration, which is moving towards that vulnerability small bits at a time, allowing you to integrate and digest just that one bit.” Throughout any exercise, she recommends deep, diaphragmatic breathing to communicate to your body that letting go is safe.
Related Reading
10 Best Exercises to Release Tight Hips Quickly
1. Low-lunge Variation: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
- Start in a low lunge with your right foot planted, right knee bent, and your left knee on the floor.
- Place your palms flat on each side of your right foot.
- Lift your left arm above your head as you lean to the right.
- Hold for five breaths, then repeat on the opposite side.
Strengthens quads and hips, lengthens psoas.
2. Crescent Lunge Knee-Up: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
- Start in a high lunge, right foot forward, knee at 90 degrees, hips square and toes facing forward.
- Lift your arms as you stand and draw your left knee towards your chest.
- Return to the start position.
- Do 10 reps, repeat on the left leg.
Strengthens glutes (especially the glute medius) and the hip flexors.
3. One-Legged Bridge Lift and Lower: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
- Lie face up, knees bent. Lift your arms.
- Engage your glutes to lift your hips.
- Transfer weight to your right leg and extend your left leg for five breaths.
- Lower your leg, hover over the floor for five breaths, then lift back up.
- Do eight reps, then repeat on the left leg.
4. Skating Squat: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
- Stand with legs just wider than hip-width apart.
- Lower into a squat.
- Shift your weight to your right leg as you rise to standing. Extend your left leg back, like you’re on skates.
- Return to a squat and repeat on the opposite leg.
- Alternate for 60 seconds.
Strengthens glutes, lengthens hip flexors.
5. Full-Range Figure Four: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
- Sit upright with your knees bent, hands on the floor behind you.
- Cross your left ankle over your right knee.
- Let the left knee travel left, then back to the centre.
- Slowly go through the range of motion, then hold for five breaths for good hip stretches.
- Repeat on the other leg.
Releases hip joints and stretches the glutes.
6. Front Foot Elevated Split Squat: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
This exercise strengthens and stretches the hip flexors, improving balance and stability.
- Stand in a split stance with one foot in front of you and one behind you.
- Place your front foot on an elevated surface such as a weight plate.
- Keeping your torso upright, bend both knees to lower until your rear knee is just above the floor.
- Push through your front heel to extend your legs, returning to the starting position.
7. 90/90 Hip Switch: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
- Sit on the floor with your knees bent and feet flat, wider than shoulder-width apart.
- Drop your knees to the right side and rotate your torso to face right, aiming for both knees to rest on the floor.
- Return to the start and repeat on the other side.
This move targets internal and external hip rotation, giving your hips a well-rounded stretch.
8. Squat with Single-Arm Overhead Reach: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
This dynamic stretch enhances hip mobility and the ability to rotate the thoracic spine in the middle of the back.
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and hold your arms out in front of you.
- Push your hips back and bend your knees to a squat until your hips align with your knees.
- Keep your torso upright and push your knees out so they don't cave in.
- Lift your right arm up and behind me, twisting your torso to the right so you can look at your right hand.
- Return your right arm to the front, then repeat on the other side.
- Return your left arm to the front and stand up.
9. Foam Roller Stretch: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
You can use a foam roller to loosen up tight hips.
- Lie face down, with your foam roller beneath and slightly below your right hip.
- Place your left leg to the side with the knee bent at a 90-degree angle.
- Rest your forearms on the ground before me to take some of your body weight off your hip. This will make the stretch less painful.
- Stretch your right leg straight out behind me, with your toes pointed backward and the front of your foot flat against the ground.
- Slowly move backward and forward over the foam roller.
10. Pigeon Stretch: Unclench Your Hips and Psoas
This stretch is commonly seen in yoga practices. It can be used daily to improve mobility in your hip flexors.
- Begin on your hands and knees in a tabletop position.
- Bring your right knee forward and place it behind your right wrist.
- Place your right ankle in front of your left hip.
- Straighten your left leg behind me, ensuring your left knee is straight and your toes are pointed.
- Keep your hips square.
- Gently lower yourself to the ground.
- Stay in this position for up to 10 seconds.
- Release the position by pushing on your hands, lifting your hips, and moving your legs back into your starting position on all fours.
- Repeat on the other side.
Related Reading
- Why Can't I Straighten My Arm After Working Out
- Why Are My Hamstrings So Tight
- Why Does My Leg Shake When I Stretch
- Fitness Assessment
- How Flexible Are You
- Sit and Reach Flexibility Test
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