Do you practice yoga regularly, or are you interested in adding a little yoga alongside your climbing routine but not sure where to start?
Today we have a guest blog post written by yoga teacher and rock climber living in the South of England, Ieva Luna. In the article, Ieva differentiates between hip mobility and flexibility. She discusses how our hips work, why it’s important to have both strong AND flexible hips, and how we can increase our hip joints’ active range of motion.
At the end of the article, there is a hip strength and flexility video that she recorded just for you to follow along with. Enjoy!
Hip Strength & Flexibility for Rock Climbing
By Ieva Luna (@luna.al.sol)
There are numerous benefits of adding yoga movement practice into our lives, from increased proprioception (body awareness in space) to deliberate breathing in order to calm our nervous system. Quite often people get into yoga with the goal of improving their flexibility. Flexibility alone might not be useful for climbing (nor very healthy for the joints), therefore we should definitely remember to strengthen the body as well.
In this article, I’ll focus on hips and share with you why strong and flexible hips are useful in climbing (and life!). I also share a video with 10 exercises that you could do regularly to improve hip strength & flexibility.
So, let’s go!
Hips… Where are they? And what do they do?
A little bit of anatomy to get to know your body:
The thigh bone, also called the femur, connects to the hip socket, called the acetabulum. The hip socket is located in the pelvis. The place where the femur head meets the pelvis and forms a ball socket joint is called the hip joint, or in other words, the hip.
Thanks to the hips and the muscles of that area, you can lift your leg forward and back, move your leg across and away from the body (e.g. flagging technique in climbing), as well as internally and externally rotate your leg (e.g. drop knee or heel hooks).
The Importance of strong and flexible hips in climbing
In various interviews, Adam Ondra has said that “having flexible hips is probably my biggest strength.”
Why is it important to have flexible and strong hips in climbing?
If you have mobile (strong + flexible) hips – ‘opening’ your hips while rock climbing, lifting your foot high on the foothold and keeping hips towards the wall will be easier. Moreover, you might find more comfortable resting positions (that might seem awkward), by transferring more of the body weight to your lower body, instead of holding on for dear life with your arms.
Next time you watch Adam Ondra climb, pay attention to his impressive hip mobility! It definitely gave me motivation to include hip mobility drills in my practice.
I believe quite a few of us have experienced the feeling of tightness or stiffness in our hips, or we have struggled to do a frogging position while rock climbing. If that resonates with you, continue reading this.
If your hips feel tight, neighboring areas of the hip might suffer due to the limited range of motion of the hip. In particular, lower back and knees might overcompensate and over time, excess stress in those areas might create an imbalance in the body.
Let’s zoom in a little bit.
Gluteus Medius
There are many muscles that cross your hip joint, but in particular today, I would like to give special attention to the gluteus medius, which is also sometimes called the laziest (or most forgotten) muscle in the lower body. Gluteus medius, located above gluteus maximus, has a very important role, which is to stabilize the pelvis during weight-bearing activities. Every time you walk, run or stand on one leg, the gluteus medius prevents the opposite side of the pelvis from dropping. If the gluteus medius is weak, every time one side of the pelvis drops, lower back and knees need to compensate while you bear weight on one leg. Over a period of time as a result, pain or discomfort might arise.
Therefore, make sure to strengthen your gluteus medius, folks! We will definitely do that in the video below.
Strength gives us flexibility… What?
Often, the solution for tight hips is associated with passive stretching, but that is not necessarily always the answer. Deep, passive stretches, such as pigeon or frog pose, might not be enough to improve the hip flexibility, nor mobility.
In order to have more open hips, we should focus on increasing our hip joint’s active range of motion. In other words, we should not only stretch the muscles, but also strengthen them in their end ranges. When muscles are strong in their end range and we have control over our movements, our nervous system knows that it is safe to go deeper. As a result of strong and stable hips, flexibility will be increased as well and we’ll experience the feeling of more open hips.
On the same note, having only flexible hips will not help us to lift the leg high on the foothold. We want our hips to also be strong, so we can lift the leg high using the leg muscles.
On this note…
Let’s give some TLC (tender loving care) to our hips:
Join me for a hip strength & flexibility session!
In the video below, I share 10 Hip Strength & Flexibility exercises with you that, if done regularly, should help to improve your hip mobility for climbing.
So, put on something comfortable and join me in this practice. You will only need a yoga mat or a carpet, a little pillow (to put under your knees if you are practicing on a hard surface) and a yoga block if you have one (you could use a book instead). During the practice, curiously explore how the movement feels in your body and also bring your attention to the breath. Feel how you are inhaling and exhaling, calmly, in no hurry. Take this time for yourself.
You deserve it.
About the Author
This article was written by Ieva Luna – yoga teacher, movement enthusiast and rock climber. She has been practicing yoga for more than 8 years and started climbing in Yangshuo, China 5 years ago (and has been hooked ever since!). Ieva is currently based in South of England where she teaches public yoga classes.
If you’d like to practice yoga and movement with Ieva Luna – she is organizing annual yoga retreats in the mountains of El Chorro, Spain (www.moonlightyogaretreats.com ). Ieva Luna also teaches Yoga for Climbers on her YouTube channel, so make sure to check that out as well.
I’m a relative newcomer to bouldering and was looking for something to help with hip flexibility and strength (having had to use my hand to hike my foot up onto a volume!)
This is perfect! Exactly what I need – thank you so much for making it available. You’re absolutely right that flexibility is only one component. I consider myself to be fairly fit and strong but this is a whole area that is missed in my normal strength training