Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

If an alien visited Earth and observed humans for a week, it might conclude that sitting is our planet's dominant sport. We sit while we work. We sit while we eat. We sit while we drive. We sit while we watch TV. We sit while we scroll through our phones looking at content about how we should probably move more. Many of us spend the majority of our waking hours folded neatly into a chair, couch, car seat, airplane seat, or desk setup. Then, somewhere along the way, we become surprised when our hips feel tight, our lower backs feel cranky, and our bodies seem less willing to do the things they used to do with ease. The truth is, your body is incredibly adaptable. And that's both the good news and the bad news. Every position you spend time in becomes familiar to your nervous system. The body essentially says, "Oh, we're doing this a lot? I'd better get efficient at it." That's a wonderful survival mechanism when you're learning a new skill. It's less wonderful when that skill is sitting. Hours of sitting place the hips in a shortened position, reduce the demand placed on the glutes, and limit the amount of movement your joints experience throughout the day. Over time, your body becomes increasingly specialized at one thing: being seated.

Do your hips feel stiff, sore, or tight at the end of the day? You’re not alone. Tight hips are a common issue in modern life, thanks to long hours spent sitting in chairs, on couches, or in cars. When we sit for extended periods, the hip flexors—the muscles at the front of your hips—shorten and tighten, leading to discomfort, limited mobility, and even lower back pain. This week’s theme, Taming Tight Hips, invites you to find release and freedom through yoga. Hip-opening poses not only help to stretch and strengthen the muscles around your hips but also address the energetic tension stored in this area of the body. The hips are a critical intersection in the body, connecting the upper and lower halves. When the hips are tight, it can create a ripple effect, causing strain in the lower back, hamstrings, and even the knees. On an energetic level, the hips are often considered a storage area for pent-up emotions, stress, and tension.

Who has tight hips? Or maybe the better question is who doesn’t have tight hips? Everything from sitting to running to handling emotional stress contributes to stiffness in the pelvic area. No matter why your hips are tight, yoga can help. And what’s so powerful about hip openers is that when you create an opening in your body, you also create an emotional release. On the physical level, hips include connective tissue and some of our biggest muscles––the glutes––and the psoas muscles in the front of the pelvis. The psoas is the only muscle that starts in the front of the body and finishes in the back body.