How your glutes relate to tight hip flexors

Do you have tight hip flexors?

Have you tried stretching them to no avail?

The answer may lie in your glutes on the complete opposite side of your body. Your hip flexors & glutes are partners in crime. When you walk, you use your hip flexors on one side to bring your airborne leg forward, while on the other side you use your glutes to push off and propel yourself forward. These 2 muscle groups balance each other out. The interesting thing we find as physical therapists is oftentimes, those with tight hip flexors also come in with poor glute strength and stability. These folks have a difficult time keeping an upright posture on one leg or doing a single leg lower or squat.

The great news is that you can use this glute and hip flexor relationship to your advantage! The more you focus on building glute strength with exercises such as glute bridges, Romanian deadlifts and hip thrusts, the better off your hip flexors will be. That is because when your glutes fire and squeeze, it helps the opposing hip flexors relax! This is a phenomenon called reciprocal inhibition and is found all over the body. 

We wish it was this simple.

Now that you know the relationship between tight hip flexors and weak or poorly coordinated glutes, it is important to mention that our bodies like to play tricks on us. TIGHT hip flexors that seem “overworked” could very well be WEAK and actually need to be strengthened to help with the perceived tightness. Weird right? It is important to get evaluated by a knowledgeable physical therapist to see where your imbalances may lie. But one thing is for sure, strengthening the glutes can’t hurt!