Desk Jockeys Continued...

In the last post we talked about tight hip flexors and how they turn your glutes (butt) off and some of the potential consequences of that scenario, none of which are good: knee pain, ankle pain, etc... And who wants that? About the same amount of people who want a weak, mushy butt.

Tight hip flexors can also lead to low back pain, too, and as you might imagine is something I find myself explaining with some regularity here at Green Chiropractic. First, let's review the anatomy:

As you can see, your hip flexors, when contracted, will lift your thigh toward your body. You'll also notice one particular group, the psoas, connects your spine to your femur. This is the reason many office workers/desk sitters/couch potatoes have low back pain. It's a matter of mechanics. When the psoas is too short the lumbar spine is pulled forward. This hyper extension puts undue stress on the facet ("fa-set") joints of the posterior lumbar spine. Once that happens pain is soon to follow.

Fortunately, treatment is fairly straight forward--spinal manipulation can open the joints up and give them some breathing room, and some simple stretches will, over time, lengthen the hip flexors that are causing all the trouble in the first place. And so as not to leave you hanging, here are some pics of those stretches:

 Pete demonstrates the basic stretch for the left hip--hard on your knees without the mat.

 Raise your arms up to sink further into the stretch.

 The standing version

 By twisting and bending away from the hip you're stretching you can get a little more out of the movement