Why do my hip flexors hurt during Pilates?
So you’ve started a Pilates routine and you are feeling really great after each class/session. You may have noticed that your posture feels more aligned, you are feeling stronger in muscles you didn’t even know existed and our body moves more freely.
You may also be feeling a little achy or some pain in your hip flexors, especially after having your legs in a “tabletop” position. Sound familiar?
This is something that commonly happens when someone is either new to Pilates or have been overusing your hip flexors during ab work. Super common but there are some things you can do to help alleviate it.
I must start by saying that it’s not a bad thing to use your hip flexors (mainly the psoas major). In fact, it is important to have strong hip flexors. They help support the abdomen, lower spine, pelvis and help move your legs. We just don’t want the hip flexors to take over causing you to underuse the deep core stabilizers (predominately the transverse abdominis).
Ironically, the best way to strengthen the psaos major is to do Pilates! The psoas major is an important muscle that helps to flex the hip joint which helps to walk, run, dance and sit. So learning to find that connection to your deep abdominal muscles and pelvic floor so that you don’t have to rely on your hip flexors to do all the work.
Some ways you can help to alleviate the pain and focus on your deep core connection is to:
Leave your feet on the floor with your knees bent instead of at “tabletop” or 90 degrees.
If your legs are at 90 degrees, you can hang your feet down so that your heels rest on the backs of your legs instead.
Do a combination of legs at tabletop then putting your feet down until you build up the deep core strength without the discomfort in the hip flexors
Pilates is all about the mind body connection, so losing focus during your session can cause your muscles to get lazy and resort to the path of least resistance by overusing muscles it shouldn’t. Keeping your focus on the muscles you should be recruiting will help to train them to become stronger.