Stretching Not Fixing Your Tight Hips after Your 20 Mile Long Run? Try These 4 Exercises Instead
The weeks leading up to peak week can be brutal.
And The Long Run of peak week can feel daunting.
But there’s something so satisfying about finishing your long runs and saying, “I did that!”
Crushing that weekly challenge, seeing your progress, and feeling your running fitness improve is almost addictive.
The tight hip flexors and stiff hips though: not so much.
And when you’re 8, maybe 6, weeks away from race day and feeling all the niggles and aches add up, it can be a real mind-trick when you’re half way into a long run or still have a third left…
And your hips choose THAT moment to pipe up.
The front of your hip gets tight.
The whole hip just starts to feel stiff.
Your stride gets shorter and shorter.
And the aching starts.
Powering through the normal aches and fatigue of a long run is one thing.
But recovering from it and moving past that hip flexor stiffness and front-of-hip soreness is another.
The reason this general hip achiness and hip flexor stiffness lingers for so long, even impacting future runs and workouts, is 8-6 weeks out from race day, you’ve reached the spot in marathon training where overall load and time-on-feet demands are accumulating rapidly.
And when your body is responding out of “protect” mode (because it can see intense training as ‘potential damage’), resting and stretching doesn’t always provide the lasting relief you’re looking for.
You’ve probably tried hip flexor or pigeon stretches.
Or mashing the front of your hip or glutes with a tennis ball or foam roller.
And you “feel something happening” in the moment, but it’s not sticking since your brain and muscle aren’t getting the message “it’s safe to relax”.
That’s where this week’s exercises come in.
I put together a recovery circuit that focuses on encouraging your hip flexors (the muscles in the front of your hip) to relax and lengthen while also restoring a specific hip motion called internal rotation.
Often, when these two issues show up together, runners experience the “my hip is so tight after my long run and I can’t get it to release” moment.
So let’s hop in.
How to Relieve Tight Hips After a Long Run: 4 Exercises for Marathoners
Circuit:
3-4 sets each // LIGHT & medium weights
Deep Squat with Breathing Sequence
8-10 reps
inhale descending into squat, exhale ascending from squat
High Plank with Banded High Knees
5-8 reps X light to medium resistance band
2-3 sec "ascent", 2-3 sec "descent"
Crab Position with Banded High Knees
5-8 reps X light to medium resistance band
2-3 sec "ascent", 2-3 sec "descent"
Isometric Elevated Lunge with Chops/Lifts
4 sets x 4-5 reps x10 sec walk break between ea set
see detailed set up notes below
How to Relieve Tight Hips During Marathon Training
Deep Squat with Breathing Sequence
I know, this is going to feel like it’s not doing anything. Hang with me.
This exercise is subtle. I’ve seen it be “meh” helpful with some patients; I’ve seen massive hip mobility improvement with others! So it’s worth the experiment.
THE KEY: I need you to inhale going down into the squat, stay in that position for 2-5 seconds, holding your breath, and exhale on the way up. While you’re exhaling, I want you to gently push with about 10 lbs of pressure into the surface you’re holding onto (back of a couch, sturdy bed frame, kitchen counter, squat rack etc)
What we’re doing in this deep squat position is encouraging greater hip internal rotation by connecting your hips/pelvis, deep core, and your breath. This is definitely more a “pelvic floor physical therapy trick”. I’ve included through because it’s so gentle that any runner, despite what niggles they, will feel safe doing it.
High Plank with Banded High Knees
Trust me on the plank situation. Your hips will thank you.
THE REASON: This is a two-for-one. We’re asking the front of your hips and hip flexors to “turn down the volume” in this starting plank position since your glutes and hamstrings have to be strong and action here.
Adding in the resisted hip flexion (the high knee) is a deliberate way to connect your hip flexor with core. And when your core and hip communicate together, things tend to be less tight.
What I need you to pay attention to: these banded reps are SLOW and controlled. Think 2-3 secs up and 2-3 secs down.
Crab Position with Banded High Knees
I Promise, I'm not trying to kill you.
PRO TIP: my favorite “trick” here that I’m repeating over and over again is using reciprocal inhibition to get your hip flexor to chill out and relax (in depth explanation down below in the Wrapping Up Section). And this crab-walk position requires a LOT of hip extension, or glute and hamstring work. Again with these reps, think SLOW and controlled with 2-3 secs up and 2-3 secs down.
If the slow, resisted banded reps are too much, you can do this with body weight, although you may less noticable results.
And as always, if you notice that some of these exercise make your hip feel like a million bucks while others leave you shrugging your shoulders, wondering if they “work”, then I want you to SKIP them. Yes. It’s ok to skip the exercises in this circuit that “don’t do anything” for you. And for a lot of runners, they’ll find that either the crab OR the plank hip flexor exercise works best for them, maybe not both.
Isometric Elevated Lunge with Chops/Lifts
I used this exercise this morning to unstick my hips and it was amazing.
OPTIONAL: a lot of runners, including myself, will use hip 90-90s (or windshield wiper positions) to try and unstick tight hips. But it’s not an exercise that works for everyone. So I used it more as a test this morning to tell just how limited my left hip internal rotation was. So I did the 90-90 as a pre-test, did this lunge exercise, and re-tested my 90-90 position. For me, the lack of tightness afterwards was night and day.
To set this up, grab an exercise step, use a stair in your house, or a even a bumper plate and a very light weight (think 5lbs MAX. you can even do this without weight).
Put the foot of the tight, stiff hip on the step and prepare to get low into your lunge. Yes, it will be kind of spicy, but I need 80-90% of your body weight on your front leg.
Once you’re here, begin sweeping your arms up, over, and down. Up + over + down in both directions = 1 rep. I could get up to 4 reps before the burn took over and I needed to rest. Do what you can do. I highly recommend talking a short walk between sets.
I personally found it took 4 rounds total of 4-5 reps with some little walk breaks inbetween for me to finally “unstick” things. But once I went back and tested my hip 90-90, I could feel a massive improvement.
WRAPPING UP
Just to be clear… It’s never an either – or.
You can still do your favorite hip stretches. And you can still use your recovery tools you swear by.
And while some of these exercises look like they’re “strength exercises”, they’re written with the intent of being more “corrective”, meaning many of them take advantage of the physical therapy principle of reciprocal inhibition and the power of isometrics.
Quick physiology lesson: each muscle has an opposite teammate.
Example: your bicep bends your elbow. Your tricep straightens your elbow.
When it comes to your hips, your hip flexor helps bend your knee towards your chest and your glutes and hamstrings help swing your leg back behind you.
With reciprocal inhibition, we take advantage of this “opposite” teammate by making it work.
Because when your glutes and hamstrings are engaged, your hip flexors MUST turn “turn down the volume” or relax its contraction.
This is often why these exercises are so effective, because the tight muscle that’s stuck in “danger, danger” mode is receiving a message to chill, relax, and lengthen in a language it understands.
And with the final exercise in the circuit, the isometric, often when we hold a position, especially within a range (or motion) that we’re limited, and we ask the surrounding muscles to co-contract (activate all together), we can slowly enter into and create greater range or motion.
We’re spending time in this position, moving slowly but deliberately through the reps, giving our body the gift of time and the chance to realize “this position is safe; It’s ok. I understand how to exist, live here.”
Our body speaks through motion.
So exercises that communicate through movement, rather than passive stretching, can create different and lasting relief.
Thanks for being here as always running fit fam, and until next time…
Dare to Train Differently,
Marie Whitt, PT, DPT //@dr.whitt.fit
Comments