9 Stretches for Tight Hips and Gluteal Muscles

9 Stretches to Relieve Tight Hips

 Below you will find 10 stretches for your hips and glutes. The reason why we like to stretch is that it not only increases our flexibility, but also our mobility and it leaves us feeling really good overall. For the full video of all the stretches, click here.

For these 9 stretches, we recommend doing a minute of each of these stretches, 30 seconds on each side.

Figure 4

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
This is for the large glute muscle, the gluteus maximus.

•  Start with your legs crossed over, in a ‘figure four’, resting your ankle on your thigh
• Grab through your bottom leg and pull upwards towards your chest
• You should feel this on your hip or glute
• This is a stretch so it should be comfortable with a stretching sensation

Pigeon Pose

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
Those of you that have done yoga will recognize this one! This stretch hits the small muscle in your hips or in your glutes, called the piriformis. It’s a tiny little muscle that typically gets tight for a lot of people that sit at desks all day, so this is a good one for that.

• Start with your thigh on the ground and cross the knee across your body
• Extend your body outwards so that your chest can hit the knee that’s crossed over
• Try to keep your body flat to the ground
• Go as deep as your feel you can

Hamstring Mobilization

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
For tight hamstrings, try this one! This is more of a mobilization than a stretch because you’re actually justing moving through range.

• Start on your back with one leg flat on the ground
• With your other leg, grasp behind your thigh
• Straighten and bend the knee, for this one don’t hold the stretch, just move through range

IT Band

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
The IT Band is a band that runs from your hip all the way down to your knee. It’s very similar to a quad stretch, but there’s a slight variation.

• Start on your side and loop your top leg up and around to get the IT band on the other side, the kind of bony prominence in your hip
• With your other leg, slightly push your knee towards the ground
• You can push down slightly with your foot that’s on top of the knee
• Try to stay upright with your body, so your knee to head is aligned as best as possible

Knee to Chest

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
This one is nice a simple to stretch out either through your knee or through the larger glute or buttock muscle.

• Start on your back and gently bring one of your knees up to your chest 
• Try to keep your body nice and straight and then switch legs

Hip Flexor

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
This is a great stretch for people that sit at desks all day, it hits that deep muscle that runs inside the front of your hips.

• Get in the lunge position, one leg forward and one knee back.
• Lean slightly forward
• Optional: add a side bend by reaching off to the side and leaning slightly forward if you’re feeling steady to emphasize that stretch a bit more. If you’re having trouble balancing, you can always grab a chair to lean on

Glute Max Stretch

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
This one is a very similar stretch to the Pigeon Pose. This should target the larger of the hip muscles.

• Get on all fours, cross your leg over (similar to the pigeon pose, without lying down this time)
• Get down onto your elbows and slightly lean forward to the point where you start feeling a stretch in your hip or buttock. So you’re putting your weight through your upper body a bit more, but not necessarily trying to drive that knee to your chest like you did for the pigeon pose.
• Some people may or may not find much of a stretch on this once, depending on where you’re feeling tightness

Hamstring Stretch

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
Back to basics, this is a nice, simple hamstring stretch.

• Start by lying on your back with both hands grasping behind one of your thighs
• Try to straighten your knee out, creating a ‘L’ shape with your legs
• You want to straight your knee as straight as possible because the more you bend the knee, the less you’re going to feel the stretch

Standing Stretch

1 minute, 30 seconds each leg.
To finish off, let’s try this standing stretch for the inner thigh or the groin. This stretch is super easy, you’ll see that a lot of runners do this one.

• Get into a straddle position so your legs are wide apart
• Lean down to one side to really stretch out that inner thigh
• The more you lean down, the more you’re going to get the stretch. If you really want to get into it, lean all the way down onto your thigh

Exercises