Knee Pain: Hip Flexor Stretching

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Anthony Baron Kirk. I'm going to be talking about stretches that we're going to think about for our knee pain segment. I'm going to use a basic yoga block. It's a very simple pad. You can also just use a pillow, something just to cushion your knee a little bit. But these can be purchased any on-line yoga type store. This is also very helpful tool in some basic stretches. But for today this will just provide a little knee cushion for my knee. So I'm going to place this on the pad on the mat. I'm going to kneel over the top of the pad and bring my right leg forward. Now the first and most important thing is always trying to get a sense of postural positioning. First of all hips. So I'll place my hands right on my hip bones. It's called my ASIS bones right here. I'm going to try to get them as level as I can. It can be very helpful to do this in front of a mirror. Secondly, I'm going to think about putting most of my body into my right heel. So my front leg will carry the load. I want to think about lifting everything up out of this left knee. So there isn't a lot of pressure on my left knee. The whole stretch will be in the front of my left thigh. And how I will get that stretch is by squeezing my butt muscles for squeezing my gluteal complex on my left and right side. And I'm going to tuck my tail bone under. So I'm taking my hips, and I'm tucking them into my left thigh. Very simple and very effective stretch for the hip flexor complex. And I will hold as I draw my belly in. I will lift my chest, keep my shoulders down, and continue to breathe every few seconds getting a little more of a squeeze in my glutes so I can think about facilitating the stretch. Once I've held this for about thirty to sixty seconds, I will step up. Switch my legs, again getting my body position finding my stable and level hips. Tucking my tail bone under. Lifting my rib cage and drawing and activating my belly button. Holding the stretch for thirty to sixty seconds."