Helpful Tips for Opening Your Hips
As dancers, tight muscles can be a weekly occurrence. Our hips tend to give us a lot of grief, so here are some helpful tips from Dani West on how to loosen them.
All you will need is a tennis ball, and a space on the floor to lie down.
Tensor Fasciae Latae – or TFL
The TFL is the muscular part at the top of your IT Band. Our TFL can become sore or tight when we are forcing turnout. Instead of engaging our external rotators, we activate the front of the hips and the TFL.
This stretch may help to relieve pain in the front of your hip when lifting to retire.
Steps:
- Locate your hip bone with your thumb
- Slide your thumb an inch towards the outside of your body
- From there, slide your thumb down an inch
- This will locate your TFL
- Place a tennis ball in that spot and while holding it there, lay sideways on top of the ball
Glute Med – or Gluteus Medius
The gluteus medius provides an outward rotation of the thigh, which assists with our turnout. It is attached at the top of the femur on top of the greater trochanter (which Miss Cally, Miss Jill, Miss Taylor, and Miss Christa all learned about in their IDTS training course!)
Steps:
- Place hands on hips with fingers facing forwards
- Place tennis ball where thumb falls on the back
- Lay down on back and angle hips towards the side with the tennis ball
Click here for Dani’s full video, and check out The Soapbox series that provides great information for dancers on how to keep their bodies safe!
