You would have noticed that I suggested squeezing your buttocks in each stretch. But why does that affect the muscles in the front of your thighs?
It has to do with the position of your pelvis. The pelvis is the lower part of the trunk of your body, between your stomach and your thighs. It includes muscles, organs and bones including your hip bones.
You can tip your pelvis forward/backward and side to side. Try this simple exercise:
- Side to side pelvic movement: While standing with your hands on your hips, bend your left knee and notice your left hip drop. Now straighten the left knee and bend the right knee. Notice your hips move side to side.
- Forward/backward pelvic movement: While standing with your hands on your hips, let your butt stick out or think of tipping your tailbone behind you. Then scoop your tailbone forward or tip your tailbone forward.
It’s that forward/backward movement we want to focus on. Again stand with your hands on your hips, knees slightly bent. Squeeze your buttocks and notice that your tailbone scoops forward.
What happened to your hip bones when you squeezed your buttocks? The top of your hip bone tipped back and the bottom of your hip bone tipped forward.
But what’s the point of all that?!
The group of muscles in the front of your thighs are called the quadriceps (quads). Generally, those muscles attach at your knee and the front of your pelvis. When you squeeze your buttocks, the front of your pelvis tips up and back (away from your knee). This pulls or lengthens the quads away from the knee. That is the reason you can find a deeper stretch by squeezing your buttocks. It’s also why tight thigh muscles can lead to knee problems.
Wait…there’s more
In positions where you hold your foot and use your hand to pull and create the stretch – squeeze the buttocks FIRST before you pull. In this position, your arm is more powerful than your buttocks. You are less likely to damage your knees if you rely on the buttock muscles to create the stretch rather than pulling with your hand.
In positions where the stretch comes from the position of the legs (think lunges), you squeeze the buttocks LAST. If you find a stretch simply by getting in to the position of the lunge, you don’t need to do any more. In a lunge, you are already lengthening and pulling on the muscle by the very nature of the position. You don’t want to pull or lengthen the quad too much, which you risk doing if you squeeze the buttocks when you can already feel the pull/stretch on the quads.
