Tight Hips? Try out these Quad Stretches on your Stairs!
How do you stretch your quads?
If you have tight hips and thigh muscle tightness, doing these stretches can help ease the tightness. These exercises are all done on a staircase, one with a sturdy railing would be great!
Follow along with these 6 stretches for relieving tightness in your hips and thighs lead by a physiotherapist.
Standing Quad Stretch
30 seconds each leg
- Holding onto the handrail of the stair, grab your ankle
- Pull your knees together
- Pull your heel up to your butt
- Try to stay nice and straight, slightly pushing your hip forward a little bit to get a nice stretch through the thigh
Hip Flexor
30 seconds each leg
- Place one foot up on the step and one on the ground
- Do a pelvic tilt, pretend as if you had a tail, you’ll want to position yourself as if you’re tucking in your tail
- Lean forward into the stair
- You should feel a really nice stretch along the top of your thigh on the ground
- The more you tilt, the more you should feel the stretch
Glute / Hip
30 seconds each leg
- Sitting down on the 2nd step, bring one of your legs over the top of your thigh, creating a ‘figure 4’
- Your ankle should be resting on your thigh
- Lean forward, chest toward your thighs
Hamstring
30 seconds each leg
- Place the heel of your foot on the 2nd or 1st step, toe pointing up, straight ahead
- Slightly stick your hips back and lean forwards towards your foot
- Key thing is to drive your hips back before you lean forward
Hip Abductor
30 seconds each leg
- Put one leg on the step
- Lean/Squat down slightly until you feel a stretch in your inner thigh of the leg that’s up on the step
Calf
30 seconds each leg
- Stand up on the step with both feet
- Move one foot slightly behind the other, resting the ball of your foot on the edge of the step
- With that foot balancing on the edge of the step, drive your heel towards the ground
- The more you push down through the heel, the more of a stretch you’ll get
Check out the video below to follow along with the exercises in real time.
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