Practice: Free Your Hips: Gentle Mobility for Balance & Strength

Jenna Zaffino:

Hi, everyone. I'm Jenna. Welcome to your seated hip mobility class. In this session, we're going to explore a series of movements that are designed to help your hips feel more ready for whatever the day holds next. Whether you've got some time sitting or you need to get up and go, the hope is that we'll explore movements that help you understand how to better manage your hips and move them throughout the day so that everything feels a little bit easier. Are you ready? Alright. Let's separate our feet so that they are flat on the ground and our ankles are right underneath our knees. And then if possible, we wanna scoot just a little bit forward off the back of your chair. 

If you need the support, the back of the chair is always there for you. If not, we wanna just explore the support of our own spine in a seated position. Take your arms down by your sides. Let's lift the shoulders up to the ears and just explore what that feels like. We all kind of know already. Then we're gonna slide the shoulder blades down and just let your arms relax by your side. Feel your chest and heart open, your neck long, and your spine supporting you. We'll bring our hands onto the knees and begin with a few pelvic tilts. 

So we'll rock backwards off of your sits bones to bring some space to your lower back, rounding your spine just a bit, maybe closing off a little in the front and opening more in the back. And then roll forward towards the center of your sits bones, continuing so that we deepen the crease of your hip fold and just lift your focus and your chest up a little bit more. Let's go through these a few more times. Rounding backward and rolling forward. This is one of the simplest acts that we can help to just remind our hips that motion and movement is available to us especially if you're seated. A lot of our seated aches and pains comes from not just the sitting. It's more about the lack of movement. So if we can bring some movement into our world on a regular basis, often we can find a little bit more ease in whatever position we have to maintain. 

Let's do one more all the way up and then come back to center. Now for this one, we're gonna press the left knee into your left hand and pull the right leg back. Hopefully, what that does is twists your hips just a tiny bit and then go the other way. This might feel a little bit more like walking Side to side. Now remember, we're never looking to go into pain. We almost want to tiptoe up to the edge of this discomfort and just kind of see what's there and how long we want to stay there. Into a place where you have choice. Into a place that feels curious rather than punishing. 

Let's go a couple more. So with that, just continuing to find a nice amount of movement that feels like we're exploring our edges without going too far. Good. Last one. Excellent. Come back to center. Now, let's widen our feet so that they're a little bit wider than the chair legs that you're seated on and we'll take the hands to the shoulders. Think of sitting up nice and tall. 

Your spine is going to stay stiff like a plank of wood. So just holding the shape. And from here, we'll fold in the hips to bring your spine as far forward as possible and then open the hips to come back to a vertical position. Let's go again. Folding forward. Maybe feeling the weight translate into your feet. Pressing into your legs to come back. Let's do that 2 more times. 

Folding forward and then bringing it all the way back up. Last one, we'll fold forward to stay. Now, from here, see if you can hold this nice long line. Our chest is still open. Heart is still open. We're gonna lift your heels up. You'll probably feel a little more compression in your hip crease and that's okay. And then lower the heels down. 

Let's do it again. Lift and lower. Lift and lower. Lift and lower. And last one. Lift and lower. Good. Come on all the way back up. 

Let's go ahead and take the hands to the back of the chair and just check-in that your heels are right underneath your knees again. We're gonna rise up onto the balls of the feet, lifting your heels, and then pivot on the ball of your foot so your heels come together and your knees reach apart. And then from here pivot on the ball of your foot so your knees come together and your heels reach apart. So we're starting to explore a little external rotation and then a little internal rotation. And you'll notice that sometimes two legs have very different personalities. I know one of my legs is much more excited about internally rotating than the other. So not to worry if it's a little tight for you here. This is all about getting curious about what's actually happening. 

Right? Good. Let's go one more time out and then lower those heels down. Bring your hands back to your shoulders and let's try our hinge forward in a different position. So creasing in the hips with the knees open and come all the way back up. And if you have a little extra range and you want a little extra stretch, you can open your knees wider, but it's not necessary to find your hinge here. So wherever it is for you. Good. Hinging forward, Bringing it back up. 

And again, hinging forward. Bringing it all the way back up. Last 2. Hinging forward and all the way back up. And last one. Holding here. Let's lift those heels. Up and down. 

Up and down, up and down. That's it. We'll go for 4, 3, 2, and 1. Excellent. Come on all the way back to center. Let's toe heel our feet all the way in. We can take the hands to the sides of the chair again or on the legs and I'm gonna scoop myself up just a tiny bit. Wanna send the right heel forward. 

And from here, we're gonna do the best we can to stand into the left leg and either make the right leg really light or lift it up as high as you can, lowering it down. Now, the big goal with this one is to try not to let your spine collapse as you do this. So it's as much of a spine and trunk exercise as it is a hip exercise. I like to imagine a little pencil right here. As I'm lifting my leg, I'm breaking that pencil. No worries about how high that leg lifts. It's just again, maybe you're just making it a little lighter off the floor and lowering it down and that's enough for today. Let's lift and lower. 

We're gonna take 3 more here. Up and down and 2 and down and one more and all the way down. Good. Now, let's stay here for a moment. Slide your leg open just slightly and we're gonna try the same thing. Now, look at your knee. Hopefully, it's pointing kind of up to the sky. Same thing with your toes. 

We're gonna find that nice strong connection, maybe holding on a little stronger to the chair. And either make your foot light or see if you can lift your leg up a little higher. This one's a little harder. Lower it down. Now, when I said the exercises are designed to make your hips feel good, it's after. Some of them are make gonna make them feel good in the middle. Some of them are going to be more of a challenge. But that's the piece about movement. 

Right? We wanna just find the edge of what we're doing and then really explore how it works for us. Let's do 32 and last 1. Good. Now, come forward. Bring your leg forward and we're going to take a figure 4 stretch. Now there are 2 options for this. If you're able to bring your heel up across your knee, then this is a great stretch for you. I also have just a little box. 

So if you have a coffee table or an ottoman or something like that, you could put your foot here. Now if you're working with a prop with a little bit of help, you just want to keep your knee in external rotation like we did before and hinge forward to find the stretch on the outer thigh here. If your ankle is across your knee, we're going to do basically the same thing, sitting up tall and hinging forward. So let's find the stretch that's yours, whether it's down closer to the ground or up higher, and then just take a moment to breathe here. Again, our chest is open. We're trying to approach the intensity of a stretch from a place that is calm and focused. So nice and easy breaths that are yours, not anyone else's. Good. 

Sometimes you'll find that if you spend a little extra time in a position that's uncomfortable, your body will actually adjust a bit and say, oh, I guess I can go a little farther there. Sometimes not. Just gentle, gentle hands. Good. If your ankle is on your knee, come on up. If it's on the block, come on up. And then we'll just take it, kind of shake it out a little bit and I'm gonna move the block off to the side for a moment. Alright. 

So let's bring the other leg forward. We've gotta go through those exercises again. Renew your posture. Sitting up nice and tall, hands holding on for support, and we're gonna lift and lower that leg. Just up and touch. Remember the idea of breaking a pencil. Reaching tall through the crown of your head, down through your seat so you have nice grounded strength. Sometimes it's also helpful to push through the bent leg to get a little extra opposition here. 

Good. Let's go 4 and 3. Really good work. 2. Stay with me. And 1. Good. Alright. 

Give it a little shake out to the side. Open that leg out to the side slightly. Ready? Here we go. Making it light, lifting it up as much or as little as you can. Just strong movements. Good. And lift, and lift. Good. 

Let's go for 4, 3 and 2 and last 1. Excellent. Alright, bring it back around. Let's bend the knee in. Let's go ahead and take your stretch either up onto across your knee or forward on something that's a little lower. Either way, we're gonna hinge forward with a long back and just take a moment to find the stretch on the outer area of your hip and your thigh. Good. It's very, very tempting to start to collapse into this stretch. 

I want you to do the best you can to keep your spine animated with length, reaching through the crown of your head and really lengthening forward. Good. If you haven't touched your feet in a while, I know that sounds a little strange, but sometimes a nice time to give yourself a little foot massage. We all deserve it. Good. Alright. Let's come all the way back up to center. Bring that foot down to the side. 

I'm gonna take my block away for the moment. Off to the side and then we're gonna take that nice wide stance again. Starting with the right heel, let's take our internal rotation into a bit of a hip stretch. So we'll wanna be right on the chair. We're gonna lift your right heel and turn your body and your leg over so your knee drops close to the ground. So this might be enough for some of us. From here, we wanna think of just dialing the pelvis under a little bit so you start to feel a stretch on your hip. If it's not enough, then what you can do is just slide your foot back a little bit farther, so that you get more stretch along the front line of your leg. 

Now, most of my weight is in the front hip. I'm gonna reach around to the back of my chair and just hold on to that leg, making sure the knee doesn't collapse in. So it's really standing there and then just opening up the front of that hip. Now, to add a little length, let's take the same arm as the back leg, reach it up to the sky, lifting up out of your hips, and press it all the way down. We're gonna do that 4 times. Reach it up to the sky. Press it down. Reach it up. 

Every time you reach, you're getting a little taller. Press it down. Let's go 2 more. Lift up. Press down. Last time, lift up. And press down. Good. 

Let's open the knee back to the center, wiggle it out a little bit and then we'll get ready to go to the other side. So lift your heel, pivot around, find the stretch, the angle that works for you. Find the support with your hand on the back of the chair. And I just think about my knee getting super heavy just reaching down to the ground to open up that hip. Alright. Let's add our reaches. So we'll come all the way up to the top and then press it down. And again, up and press. 

Every time you lift up, reach up, grow taller and press. Good. Couple more here. Lift and press. Last 2. And last 1. Good. Press all the way down. 

Excellent. Let's open that knee. Come back to center. We're gonna walk our feet back to center. Alright. We've done a lot of kind of opening and closing. Now let's see if we can do a little marching. So if you need extra support, hold on to your chair. 

We're just going to lift one knee up and down. Lift the other leg up and down. Again, our goal is to make sure we're not collapsing as we do. So we're really working the strength and the integrity of our hip joint. Now, if you feel balanced and sturdy on your chair, you could let go and just do a little opposition. Opposition. It's all simple movement but it's harder than it looks especially, if you're really trying to keep your spine tall. Good. 

Reach and reach. That's it. Good. Excellent. Let's go for 3 and 2 and 1. And bring your hands to the back of the chair. So use your hands to sit up a little taller. Maybe you're holding onto the legs. 

Maybe it's the back of the chair. We're just gonna open, open, close, close. We're walking out, out, and in, and in again. Right, left, right, left. Opening the legs as far as you can and closing them up. Good. Let's start the open with the left foot. Open. 

Open and close. Nice work everyone. Open. Open and close. Good job. And open, open, and close, and close. Good. We're gonna do one more round of those. 

If you'd like to keep holding on to the chair for balance, be my guest. If you wanna try to upgrade, balancing on just your spine, reach your arms out to the side. Ready? Here we go. Open. Open. A little different. Do it again with the right. And, close. 

Right, left, really strong backs. One more. Yes. And starting left. Open. Open. Close. Open. 

Open, close. I know. You're working hard. It looks like you're just dancing in a chair, but you're doing some of the hardest work your hips have seen. Right? Good. Hold it here. Let's reach down to the feet. Just let your spine wrap over. 

Take a gentle breath in and out. Good. Roll all the way back up to the top. Taking our hands behind the head, you can also go back to the shoulders if this position is challenging, we're going to hinge forward in our hips and come back up. Up. Now, our goal is to be preparing to stand. So bring your feet into a place where they might be able to take your weight. We're gonna hinge forward and come back to center. 

And again, hinge forward. Come back to center. Let's do 2 more. Hinge nice and tall and long through your spine. All the way back to center. One more time, hinge forward and come back to center. Now, from here, let's hinge forward and can you stand up all the way nice and tall? Really nice. Let's bend our knees, hinge forward. 

If you need to find the chair with your hands, go for it and come back to center. Let's do that again. Hinge. Press to stand if possible. Hinge. And if you're not standing today that's totally fine. We just want to find a way of hinging and maybe just feeling what it's like to shift your weight forward towards your feet. But you're doing what feels good to you. 

Let's do one more time. Hinge and stand to stay. Really good. Alright. Let's take a walk around to the back of the chair. If you've got something else that you like that supports you better, then please choose that. Maybe a countertop or a walking support. It's all good. 

We just wanna do a little bit of hip hinging in a standing position. So we're gonna reach the hips back as we fold a little deeper than we did in seated and then come all the way up to stand tall. Let's do that again. Hinging forward and all the way back up. Hinging forward, all the way back up. Last one. Hinge forward. All the way back up. 

Now, let's turn and use the side of our chair, the back of our chair for a little balance. Hand on the hip. Stand on your right leg, and let's just march the left one. Pick it up, put it down. Pick it up, put it down. Pick it up, that's it. Now, we're gonna open it out to the side. Pick it up and place it to the side. 

Pick it up. Bring it to center. Again, pick it up. To the side. Pick it up. To center. Pick it up. To side. 

Pick it up. One more time. Lift. Side. Lift and come back to center. Really nice work. Let's go to the other side. You can just turn around. 

Find your weight into your left leg. Lift your right up and down. Up and down. Good. Staying nice and tall just like you did when you were seated. And when you're ready, if you're ready, we're gonna take the leg up and open. Here we go. Up, open out, up, center. 

Up, open, up, center. Up, open, up, center. Last one. Up, Open and up and center. Really nice. Alright. If possible, just stand for a moment. Feel what it's like to move your hips from side to side. 

Maybe take a couple steps. Feel what it's like to walk around. Hopefully, you feel a little warmth around your hips and maybe a sense of energy and readiness for whatever the day holds next. It is a great idea to weave this class into your wellness routine especially if you felt some positive results of moving your hips. Even doing 5 minutes of just gentle hip mobility work with your chair or in standing is going to make a difference because it helps lubricate your joints and remind them that they have more than one position to live in. So please consider adding this into your weekly routine, at least for a little while while you get more more oriented to what it feels like to do this kind of hip work. And stay tuned for more classes that will progress on this class with a few more challenges on the mat and even with some weights. Thank you for being here, and remember, you are strong and resilient, and the small moments matter. 

I’ll see you next time!