How to Improve Your Hip Flexibility (Stretching Routine & Poses)

This guide is for you if you’re someone who isn’t naturally super flexible and wants to improve hip flexibility for activities such as yoga, meditation, sports, or just general life mobility.

I learned the main principles from Lucas at YogaBody and customized the poses to my body after. It has been helpful in improving my hip flexibility over time.

The Main Principles to Improve Hip Flexibility

Wet noodle or relax while holding the poses
Slow 4 x 8 breathing (4 count in breath through nose & 8 count out breath through mouth helps)
Long hold passive tension 3-5 minutes (meet or beat your previous time)

Using the combination of slow breathing and long holds allows you to overcome the body’s nervous system reflex that is usually active for a few minutes when starting any pose that is very opening.

It’s best to do this stretching routine once per day for 15 minutes.

Each hold should be around 5 minutes so that would be a total of 2 poses where 1 pose has 2 separate holds to it for a total of 15 combined minutes.

You can mix and match the poses as you see fit for your body as they all work different areas needed for hip mobility.

Be sure to prop up in positions that you are not flexible enough for yet.

If you can make this routine part of your evening routine before going to sleep the calm breathing patterns and relaxation allows the parasympathetic nervous system to kick in allowing better sleep.

Lastly, it usually takes a month or so to see initial results then you will see additional gains over the longer term.

The key is stretching consistently with 3-5 minute holds. Shorter stretching times that are typical in sports warm-ups will not have a major impact on flexibility.