Most people have tight hips, but just because they're tight doesn't mean they need to stay that way. Loosen those hip flexors and open your hips up with 12 of the best hip flexor stretches you can do.

You’ve heard the saying: it’s all in the hips, but for many of us, our hips – or more precisely, our hip flexors – are tight, stiff and inflexible. If you’re an office worker you can probably thank sitting down at your desk 8 or more hours a day for your tight hip flexors. Habitual sitting causes your hip flexors to tighten and shorten – adjustable standing desks, anyone?

Luckily, there is a lot you can do to get those hips nice and flexible again, so whether you want to tear it up on the dance floor, improve your athletic performance or just get better posture – now you can!

Purpose of Hip Flexors

First off, just what do you hip flexors do? There’s no point in stretching something if all it does is sit there looking pretty! Luckily, it turns out these little muscles are pretty darn important! Specifically, your hip flexors are a group of skeletal muscles responsible for:

Flexing your hip joint.

Flexing your trunk forward.

Pulling your knees upward.

Moving your legs from side to side and front to back.

Helps stabilize your lower body.

Why You Should Stretch Your Hip Flexors

Tight hip flexors negatively affect the results you get from your workouts! Everybody loves to drop it like a squat, but to get a great squat you need to have great hip flexor mobility. Especially, if you want to hit those glutes for best results.

In other words, flexible hip flexors are going to help you get a better booty! Not only that, having flexible, strong hip flexors will help you get better results from many abdominal exercises.

Tightness in this area also often goes hand-in-hand with anterior pelvic tilt, i.e. where your butt sticks out (more than it should) and, if there’s too much tilt it isn’t great for your posture and as a result can contribute to back pain. Not to mention a negative effect on your athletic performance and just about every activity you do.

Getting flexible in this area can help to correct anterior pelvic tilt, especially when combined with glute and core work, giving you much better posture.

Warm Ups for Hip Flexors

Before you do any static stretching, you’ve got to get those muscles warm. Here are some good warm ups for your hip flexors.

High Knees

Leg Swings

Lunge with Pulse

Walking Spiderman

Lying Psoas March

Stretches for Tight Hip Flexors

1. Butterfly Stretch Awesome stretch for opening up the hips.

2. Happy Baby Pose Looks a bit funny, but it’s a great stretch. Still, we’re probably going to save this one for home.

5. Sumo Squat to Stand A more dynamic version of the deep squat stretch, so it could probably be used as a warm up. Also hits the hamstrings which is nice.

6. Lizard Pose Probably our favorite stretch – just really good!

7. Pigeon Pose Another one we love, but can be a little hard on the knees sometimes!

9. Frog Pose / Horizontal Squat Stretch A really good stretch… Just not sure if it also wins the award for most embarassing stretch. Guess this is another one we’ll be doing at home!

Which is your favorite stretch? Did we miss any? Let us know in the comment section below!

How to Do the Splits If you liked these stretches for your hip flexors, then you'll love all the stretches we've put together to help you do the splits. There are videos, a stretching routine, a 30 day challenge and more! Find out how to do the splits! »