6 Tight Hip Flexors Symptoms That You Must Know And How To Cure It!


6 Tight Hip Flexors Symptoms

After a grueling 4-5 hours at the office, it was finally time to go back home. I stood up, feeling miserable and slowly walk to the door..

The same thing happened for 5 days a week, and something was always in my mind all the time: What did I do that made me feel very sluggish at the end of the day?

My job is not too hard (a typical desk job after all) and yet I felt very tired. This tiredness is then brought home where my sex life suffers as an indirect result.

“It was not like this when I was young” I thought to myself.

3. hip tightness sittingIt was only after a few years that I realized I was actually exhibiting symptoms of tight hip flexor.

The hip flexor muscles are responsible for the whole movement of the body (standing, walking, running, sitting, sex, etc) and are very important.

Lots of sitting will make the muscles tight and is the prime cause of tight hip flexors.

So if you feel there’s something a miss with your body, perhaps you need to watch out for tight hip flexors symptoms.

In this article, I’m going to share with you the 6 most common tight hip flexors symptoms that everyone should know. Read on!

 

Here are the 6 tight hip flexors symptoms that you need to know:

  1. Sluggish Movement
  2. Reduced Sports Performance
  3. Reduced Sexual Performance
  4. Anterior Pelvic Tilt
  5. Negative Effects On Emotion
  6. Strain Pain On Hips

 

1.1 Isaac Scott small

Hi guys! My name is Isaac and today I want to share about tight hip flexor symptoms that I personally had, and how I managed to overcome it by exercising at home.

I’m going to tell you all about tight hip flexors in this article, so keep on reading!

I’m just a normal guy doing a normal desk job. When I first got this job, I noticed some of my seniors were complaining about their back and how sitting for long hours are killing them.

My company even go so far to establish a guideline on what is the best postures an employee should take to avoid this problem. This had reduced their mobility, as far as I can tell and I always wondered why this is happening (since I was a fit young guy at that time LOL!)

It was not until I had my back injury while lifting heavy deadlifts that suddenly everything took a turn for the worse. I managed to cure my slipped disc by going for treatment under a chiropractor and physiotherapist.

I thought that everything will return back to normal but little did I know my episodes of tight hip flexors were just beginning. Here are the 6 tight hip flexors symptoms that I personally had:


1- Sluggish Movement

Remember about my seniors with their back pain and sluggish mobility? Well, that also happened to me. Lots of sitting really screws up your tight hip muscles, specifically the psoas major muscles which connects the backbone to our front leg.

We move by having our muscles contract (shortened) and lengthen to move the bones and body. During prolonged sitting for hours, that muscles will be shortened and lose the ability to immediately lengthen.

And guess what happens when you stand up or walk? The muscles are still shortened and this causes a lot of problems such as sluggish movement.

Try to remember the last time you did hours of work sitting and then tried to stand up to walk. Do you feel not comfortable and had to take a few steps to adjust your body before you can walk normally again?

Well, that’s the first sign of tight hip flexors.

Tight hip flexors will affect your movement and you will feel your body is sluggish, heavy and hard to move.

Contrary to popular beliefs that our body become worse with age, I believe we brought this to our body by having a sedentary lifestyle and not moving as much as when we’re in our youth.

And yes, desk jobs are the number one culprit in this regard. Try to sit down 8 hours a day for 5 days a week.

If I can feel the burden it place on my body, no wonder many old people developed hunchback and had problem walking after so many years of sitting!

While we can’t simply change our jobs, we can try to reduce the duration we sit continuously. Right now, I try to make sure I’m standing up every 30 minutes of sitting to reduce the effect.

One thing that I like to do is to do a standing back extension (picture below) to bring back balance to the hip region muscles. It’s also good if you have a back problem!

Standing back extension


2- Reduced Sports Performance

American football playerThe second tight hip flexors symptoms that I had was reduced sports performance. When I had problem with tight hip back then, I also felt that my performance in sports was hampered back then.

I was an avid fitness freak in the past – going to marathons, gym sessions etc. And then, I can feel that my body was not as good as before.

The core of the body around the hip region is the center of our body’s movement. In sports, it’s also the main pivot point where all explosive movements came from.

Which is why most sports (football, martial arts, etc) have the players lowered their body in order to provide the maximum explosiveness.

A guy with tight hip flexors will often have an instability of the muscles in the hip region with a tight psoas muscles AND a weak/lengthen glutes (butt) muscles.

This instability causes the muscles not being able to fire properly, and lowers our athletic performance.

Besides, logically speaking, if you’re having a sluggish movement (see symptome no.1 above), the you’re surely having a lower sports performance! So if you’re an athlete, then tight hip flexors is one of your worst enemies!


3- Reduced Sexual Performance

8. tight hip flexor sexual performanceThe same thing happened to my sexual performance. If before I can do a few rounds of sex in a night, now it seems that getting one alone is a big achievement.

A loose and flexible hips is required for a great and dynamic sex. Just like sports, sexual activities depends a lot on hip mobility to bring everything to life.

With a bad and tight hip flexors, everything seems to be harder to do. Don’t be surprised that you can’t do your favorite athletic sexual positions any longer LOL!

In addition to this, the sluggish feeling of tight hip (more on that later) will also affect your relationship with your partner, on and off the bed. I mean how can you expect to get it done if you’re feeling very tired after work right?

Not to mention having tight hips means there’s a muscular imbalance at the pelvic region. This not only affect our movement but also blood flow to our private parts (which is very important for a guy, if you know what I mean).

Having restricted or reduced blood flow can only mean our ability to stay hard on bed is reduced – which is definitely bad for sex.


4- Anterior Pelvic Tilt

9. anterior pelvic tiltAnother issue that I had was anterior pelvic tilt (or APT). If you notice, a girl that wears high heels will often have her butt stick out.

In a way, that is also APT though it was caused by her wearing a high heels instead any health symptoms.

A guy with APT will exhibit the same thing: his butt will stick out and his belly will protrudes out.

While a girl with such posture is sexy, a guy with such posture is definitely NOT sexy. It only makes him look weird and fat even though he has a low body fat count.

What happened was the tight hips distorts the posture due to the tighten psoas muscles that pushes everything out to the front of the body. While it looks beautiful on a lady, it looks horrendous on a guy LOL!

In addition, APT puts lots of stress on the lower back and since I already have some lingering back pain, this posture is definitely not a good thing to have.


5- Effects On Emotion

Feel StressI’ve touched on this a bit above but I would like to ask have you ever felt good after a few hours of sitting?

Me, and most people that I’ve met all agreed that we will feel tired, sluggish and stressful after long hours of sitting.

And this is not just about the sluggish movements, this is what we will feel in our brains and emotions.

I did a comparison on this where I record how I felt after 3 hours sitting on a chair doing my work versus how I felt after doing one hour of jogging.

The difference is night and day! I felt great after my jogging even though I was sweating like crazy and tired as hell. Conversely, I felt very tired and sluggish after the 3 hours sitting.

Granted, physical activities will release endorphins aka feel good hormone which is why the difference in emotions.

But the main point is sitting for a long time will not do you any good. Humans are designed to be moving so by having us glued to our chair, it will affect our emotions negatively.

As humans are emotional being, being stressful and tired does not do us any good. It will affect our lives, our work and our relationships with our friends and family.


6- Strain Pain On Hips

Last but not least, I’ve also noticed strain pains on my hips though it is quite rare in my case and only happens after a very long working session.

What happened was the long hours of sitting causes my hip muscles to be fixated at that positions or form.

When I tried to stand up and walk, the muscles can’t reform as fast as it should be. This caused strain pains on the muscles when I still tried to force my way.

In a way, it’s kind of when your leg muscles pulled up when you try to run without warming up.

How To Treat Tight Hip Flexors?

So how did I treat my tight hip flexors? Being a fitness enthusiasts, I did not go to a chiropractor or physiotherapist as it’s not a really serious medical issue and I believe it can be treated by doing stretching to the hip muscles.

(Also, I was trying to save some money LOL!)

While it did helped relieve some tensions, I noticed that just doing the stretches that I found on fitness sites or youtube won’t do.

I’ve done countless “hip flexor stretching” but all of them only gave some relief at that point of time only and none of it seems to give a permanent solution to the problem.

Youtube tight hip flexors

Most exercise videos about tight hip flexors only work for short term….

That was when I stumbled upon a site that give a review of a training ebook on how to unlock tight hip flexors. I read the introduction on the home page and everything just made sense. You can read it here to see what I mean.

The guys (Mike Westerdal and Rick Kaselj) are renowned health and fitness experts and had devised a 10-step exercise plan on how to unlock tight hip flexors. I was skeptical at first since I thought I had learned all the stretches and yoga positions to treat hip flexors.

But seeing as the ebook was on sale for just about $10 (clink this link to see if the discount is still there) AND there’s a money back guarantee, I thought I’ve got nothing to lose and clicked “buy”.

Does Unlock Your Hip Flexors Ebook Works?

1. Unlock-Your-Hip-FlexorsYes it does!

I read the whole 60 pages ebook in less than one hour. The ebook was packed with information on how tight hip flexors were formed, its symptoms and last but not least the, the secret sauce – the 10-exercises based on sequential flow to unlock your thigh hips.

I’m very impressed as the 10 exercises are not the typical exercises that you can see on internet.

I never knew most of them and the stretches seemed to make sense in unlocking the muscular tightness around the hip region.

While the ebook is sufficient, I’d say the best way to learn is by watching the 21 minutes coaching video by Rick Kaselj.

It’s very easy to understand and besides showing how to do the exercises correctly, he also explained in detail on what each exercises do and tips to maximize the effect.

After I started doing the exercises daily (I did twice a day, once during lunch hour at my office’s gym and another time at home after work), I felt a great improvement on how my body feel.

I’m not as sluggish anymore and it feels a lot easier to move. Long walks are not an issue anymore as I’m feeling energetic throughout the day. And yes, the exercises also helped me in my sports (and sexual) performances =)

By the way in case you’re interested, I bought the ebook while it was on sale for just about $10 (clink this link to see if the discount is still there).

 

Conclusion: Don’t Let Tight Hip Flexors Haunt You Forever

Tight hip flexors will happen to most adults that his/her daily activities revolve around sitting for long hours everyday. It has the 6 symptoms above and all of it can negatively affect and reduce our daily lives’ quality.

The common perception that tight hips happened due to older age is not entirely correct. As I’ve mentioned above, tight hips is more related to our daily activities – that is if we’re active and don’t sit too much, tight hips can be prevented.

But if your work needs you to sit for hours (like me and most other adults), I’d say regular break interval where you get up and do light stretches will work wonders.

In addition, try to get some exercises 3-4 times a week (the Unlock Your Hip Flexors ebook program works great for this purpose) to loosen up the hip joints.

I hope this article about tight hip flexors symptoms will be very helpful to you. Do let me know if you have any questions regarding this article.

Till next time.

Cheers!

6 thoughts on “6 Tight Hip Flexors Symptoms That You Must Know And How To Cure It!

  1. I’m someone with tight hip flexors (got a couple of these symptoms too) and can vouch that the typical XX exercises to heal tight hips on the internet and YouTube are like scams.. while it worked initially, none gave me a lasting recovery. I’m interested to get the unlock your hip flexors ebook but does it come with money back guarantee?

    1. Hi Lewis. The main issue that I can see with typical hip flexors exercises are they don’t adequately target, stretch and strengthen the deep hip muscles. You will feel some relieve after a while but none will stick in the long run. The Unlock Your Hip Flexors uses 10 exercises that have been designed in order to relieve the hip flexors pressure and strengthen it. It does have a 60 days guarantee if you’re not satisfied with it.

  2. Oh my gosh! I actually have a few if these symptoms myself! I had a bit of an issue with my lower back and thought that my hard-to-move body is due to that. But who knows that it can also be due to tight hip flexors. How long do you think that unlock your hip flexors will take to fix my tight hips?

    1. Hi Sarah. Normally it will take 1 to 2 weeks to get a permanent result. But even from the first time doing it, you can notice a very refreshing change on your body as the hip flexors were finally stretched after years of being tightened.

  3. Oh my… I never thought that I have tight hip flexor. I have all the symptoms that you listed here and it’s soo on point! Thanks for this article Isaac!

    1. Hi Winnie. It’s quite hard to diagnose it yourselves without any knowledge of the tight hip flexors symptoms. Now, you should try to cure tight hip flexors using some of these guides (here and here). I wish you the best =)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Content