Why Pigeon Pose Is the Stretch You Have to Loosen Up These Cranky Hips

For those who’re one of many 25% of People who don’t get the beneficial quantity of bodily exercise every week, you is likely to be all-too-familiar with a typical aspect impact of spending somewhat an excessive amount of time sitting: cranky hips, decrease again ache, and the final feeling like your muscle mass have tightened up into a giant ball of stress.

The excellent news? Yoga poses, particularly pigeon pose—also called Eka Pada Rajakapotasana in Sanskrit—will help by stretching the muscle mass in your decrease again and hips, serving to enhance their mobility and making them really feel extra refreshed than ever.

For all the things it’s good to find out about pigeon pose—together with which muscle mass it hits, the perks of including it to your routine, and the right way to repair frequent kind errors—carry on studying.

Which muscle mass does pigeon pose stretch?

In keeping with bodily therapist Kim Grundy, PT, DPT, pigeon pose stretches muscle mass in your decrease physique, together with the next:

• Hip flexors: Positioned on the entrance of your hips, your hip flexors—which embody the iliacus, psoas main, rectus femoris, and sartorius—are accountable for transferring your legs and knees up towards your physique. Say, for example, should you have been doing the excessive knees train.
• Piriformis: Your piriformis muscle, which works out of your decrease backbone to your higher thigh, rotates your hips, legs, and ft outward, serving to you carry out motion like stepping right into a automotive.
• Glutes: Three glutes muscle mass make up your butt: the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. Collectively, they work to increase and rotate your thigh outward, and will let you do issues like stroll or run.
• Inside thighs: Your interior thighs are made up of 5 muscle mass that work to maneuver your legs in towards the middle of your physique. This helps maintain you regular and stabilized as you stroll, per the Nationwide Library of Drugs.

What are the advantages of pigeon pose?

1. It might assist your hips transfer simpler.

“This pose is superb for enhancing hip mobility, because it stretches a number of hip muscle mass without delay,” Dr. Grundy says. “It may be significantly helpful for people with tight hip flexors from extended sitting at a desk.” Together with serving to your decrease physique merely really feel less tense and achy, this could additionally show you how to faucet into your full vary of movement, which may are available in clutch should you do workout routines like squats and lunges on the fitness center.

2. It might ease ache.

Together with soothing the aches that come from merely sitting an excessive amount of, pigeon pose may also assist of us who stay with sciatica—a situation that triggers ache in your sciatic nerve, which travels down every leg out of your butt, and is commonly attributable to damage to or stress on the nerve. As a result of pigeon pose stretches your glutes, it will probably promote blood stream to your muscle mass and nerves in that space, which will help alleviate sciatic ache, based on Dr. Grundy.

Moreover, doing pigeon pose can also enhance decrease again ache, because it stretches the muscle mass there, Grundy says. And tight muscle mass can really feel fairly rattling achy!

Who ought to attempt pigeon pose?

There’s a giant group of people that may benefit from this one: “Pigeon pose is a superb stretch for these wanting to enhance hip flexibility and loosen up the muscle mass within the decrease again,” Dr. Grundy says. So, like we talked about, just about all of us who spend lots of time parked in a chair or on a sofa.