Explainer | Tight hip flexors in runners: symptoms, prevention, cure – how to improve your running with strength training and mobility
- Tight hip flexors are common, often caused by a sedentary lifestyle between exercising, but there are some easy remedies
- Hip flexors are the group of muscles that attach your thigh to you pelvis and lower back, allowing you to lift your leg
Hip flexors are key to running, but as they are a small muscle group they are often neglected in training. Tight hip flexors can effect your gait, make you less efficient, lead to injury or at least feelings of tightness in areas such as the lower back.
You should include work on your hip flexors to make them mobile and strong to improve your running.
Why are hip flexors important for running?
Hip flexors are a band of muscles that go between the pelvis and the thigh. They are around the groin area and connect your lower back to your hips. They are responsible for your leg swinging from the hip, which is essential to movements like kicking, bending or running – in short, the hip flexors make your hips flex.
They are in fact a group of muscles, including one that is part of your quadriceps, which runs down to your knee.
Key to running well, they are essential to the basic movement of lifting your leg, and also play a role in balance, posture and mobility. Not only will you run faster with healthy hip flexors, you will also run more efficiently, thereby using less energy and reducing the chance of injury.