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April 28, 2020

Three piriformis stretching exercises for every body

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In this video, Liv takes you through a seated piriformis, a standing version, and an Elephant Walk, to see if stretching these pesky muscles helps your forward bending. 

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Olivia:

Hello, Olivia here. In this video, I'd like to show you two versions of a stretch for the muscles in the back of the hip joint, principally piriformis. The first version is done seated in a chair, and the second version is a standing exercise, which adds a small amount of balance to the exercise.



Olivia:

Very often, when you sit for too long and then you get up, you feel achiness, general tightness in the hips, including these muscles at the back of the hip joint. So this is a very good exercise to do if you've been sitting for too long. We have got these old-fashioned wooden kitchen chairs, and they're fantastic because they're a very hard surface. You can feel how your body is positioned on the chair. Also, a consideration is you don't want your hips to be lower than your knees because the tendency of that sort of arrangement will be that the hips will be rolling back. And as most of you would know, when you want to stretch muscles at the back of the hip joint, you want to be untucking or sticking the bottom out, rolling the pelvis forward as much as possible. So if your arrangement is such that your hips are lower than your knees, you might want to pad yourself up a little bit more.



Olivia:

So let's do it. I've got two chairs and you'll see why in a moment. I'm going to stretch my left leg. First position is to bring the foot up and just have the outside of the foot cross over the top of the support leg's knee, rather than being in a fully cross-legged position. Rest there. And it doesn't matter if this knee is quite high up, you don't need to be actively pulling it down towards the floor and do be aware that there's no support for this leg. Just let it drape to the side and see how that feels. Then, sit up as tall as you can, actively sit up tall and that's already starting the process of tilting the pelvis forward. Then turn your body towards the two feet.



Olivia:

Now, if you only had one chair, you could start to incorporate bending forward by just pulling on whatever you can grab onto. You could reach down and hold the leg here or underneath. But what I find is, in this position, if you start to bend forward, there's a real tendency to make it a spinal movement more than a bending forward from the hip. So what I find works better is to have this second chair, or it could be a table, and you actively reach out to that other object, because then you get the whole lengthening movement and it helps you keep the spine long and straight. As well, this thing that I'm reaching out to, the back of the chair, when I've gone as far as I can comfortably stretch, then I can let myself support some of the weight of this long lever that's being reached out here. And that allows you to relax more effectively into your final stretch position.



Olivia:

So I'm just doing my initial stretch position here. I've actively reached out to the chair, I'm thinking about the chest going out and forwards to maintain the long, straight spine, and then I'm resting. Breathing comfortably, have the head and neck in a comfortable position. This movement doesn't help with the position of the pelvis. It's the moving of the chest forward that helps you roll the hips over. Breathe and relax. Then we'll do a contraction. The contraction for this particular configuration is to try and sweep this foot down and out to the side. That's a piriformis contraction, so I'm doing that for five, four, three, two, one. Slowly stop contracting, take a deep breath in. And as you breathe out, let as much of the effort of the contraction go, relax as much as you can in other words. Then take another full breath in, and as you breathe out, then you try and go a little bit further into the stretch. So reach out more and then let your body be supported to some extent on the chair.



Olivia:

If you need a stronger stretch, then you want to play around with strongly untucking the pelvis. I'm trying to stick my bottom out behind me, and I'm trying to lead with the hip that's being stretched and I breathe and relax there. Check that my belly is relaxed. Let go of any tension that you can. And to come out of the position, bring one hand down, take a breath in, and help yourself come back up to that upright position. Bring the leg down, and wriggle it around. So there's the seated chair version and now we'll move on to the standing version.



Olivia:

Okay, now for the standing version. You will be standing on one leg, so there is a balance component, and part of the exercise involves a squatting movement as well on that one leg, so that involves a bit of leg strength. So to begin with, we're going to use a chair as a balance aid and a support, but then I want to finish with the very final version, which doesn't use the chair. Just like in the seated version, in fact, in any version of the piriformis exercise, we want the movement to be happening at the hip joint, not in the spine, keep that in mind. So leg configuration, just like we did in this chair version a moment ago, have a foot crossed over the leg here, this knee's out to the side, using the chair to help me balance. And I start to do a tiny bit of knee bend with the support leg, but that's not my emphasis initially.



Olivia:

My emphasis initially is to bend forward from the hips, no flexion in the spine at all. And I've got some weight on the chair here and I get used to that sensation. I feel where the balance is with the foot on the floor there. And I actively untuck the pelvis. If possible, you want to introduce some lumbar extension here, not just keep the back straight, but extend the spine. I'm going to bend down a little bit more or squat down a little bit more here. And then I do my contraction, which is to try and sweep the stretching leg's foot through the support leg and off to the side. So I'll do that for five, four, three, two, one. Slowly stop contracting, take a breath in. As you breathe out, relax as much as you can, move the chest forward. Any spine lengthening straightening action, do that from time to time as you hold the position, stick the bottom out, and now I'm going to sink down even further.



Olivia:

And what's happening here is that the angle at the hips is closing and my chest is coming further towards the stretching leg's foot. Make sure you feel comfortable. Well, that's a relative term here, because it's a strong stretch in the hip, but make sure there's no discomfort in the standing leg's knee. And then the very final position would be full balance, arms out to the side, and bend down as far as you can, stick the bottom out again. Breathe and relax here. To come out, use the chair, take a breath in as you stand up and then shake that leg out.



Olivia:

Okay, so now you've done the chair and standing versions of the piriformis exercise on one side. As well as making the back of the hips feel more comfortable after periods of being seated, stretching the piriformis can improve your forward bending. So let's test that now by doing the elephant walk. Watch first, because you're going to be upside down and unsighted. Got my feet about hip width apart, I'm bending the knees. I'm using some arms support as I lower my body and getting as much of the front of my body in contact with the legs as possible. And then you let the hands hang down and let the head hang forward. Just get used to that position.



Olivia:

The elephant walk is, one leg at a time, you're making a small effort to try and straighten that knee without losing the contact of the body and the thigh. You feel the stretch through the back of the leg, and then you let that effort go, and you try the same thing on the other side. There's no long holds here, you're just one by one, little knee straightening effort; feel the stretch, let it go. And because you've only done the piriformis exercise on one side at this point, feel whether there's any difference in the range of movement and the general feeling as you do this standing forward bend exercise. Let the head and neck relax as much as you need to, to be completely comfortable. I like to do the movements slow; you can maximise the sensation, but you can vary the speed. To come out of the position, take a full breath in, hold it as you use your arms to press yourself back to your upright position and then shake everything out.



Olivia:

So there you go. Two versions of a piriformis exercise and then see how it feels to do a forward bending movement. Have a go and let us know in the comments how it feels in your body.


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