We've finally made it to the third and final part of my hip opening anatomy posts! In this post, we'll take a look at how we can open the hips in the transverse (or horizontal) plane. If you missed the sagittal and coronal planes, please check out part I and part II of this series. Remember that the transverse plane is all about rotation, so we'll be looking at internal and external rotation of the hips.
The Hip Rotator Muscles
Rotation is definitely the most complex of the hip opening motions. It involves stretching mainly the external rotator muscles: gluteus maximus, and the front parts of gluteus medius and minimus and the deep external rotator muscles: piriformis, obturator internus, obturator externus, gemellus superior, gemellus inferior, and quadratus femoris. There are A LOT muscles, so just call them the hip external rotators and deep external rotators if that helps! These muscles connect from the back and outsides of your pelvis to the big bony bump on the top and outside of your thigh bone (femur). See the external rotators below.
Just like we focus more on opening the hip flexors and adductors in the other planes, in the transverse plane, we do more to open the external rotator muscles than the internal rotator muscles: TFL, some adductors, gluteus medius and minimus (anterior fibers).
Opening the External Rotators with External Rotation
Opening the external rotators can be a little confusing. We'll need to break our use-the-opposite-motion-of-a-muscle-to-stretch-it rule. Hip openers with rotation often involve flexing the hips first. Hip flexion is then combined with different degrees of adduction, abduction and/or external rotation to stretch the external rotator muscles. The reason is that flexion changes the angle of pull of some these muscles. Read about how the piriformis changes actions as the hip is flexed for a detailed example. Most of these poses will involve some variation of a half pigeon or figure 4 leg like in the poses below.
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And don't forget your half pigeon variations...
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Opening the hips with external rotation will help you access poses such as eka pada galavasana (flying pigeon) and parsva dandasana, that crazy looking arm balance above!
Opening the External Rotators with Internal Rotation
Internal hip rotation can also be used to open the hips in the transverse plane. Internal rotation by itself will focus on stretching the deep external rotators. You can feel these stretches really deep and low in the back of the hips. Take a look at the pictures below for some examples.
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Opening the hips with internal rotation will release those deep external rotator muscles that work so hard playing a part in stabilizing your pelvis. It'll also help you deepen your garudasana (eagle pose) to finally get your feet to wrap behind your calf!
Summary
And that's it for basic hip opening! Now you know how to open all the parts of the hips and which parts to open for the poses you're preparing for. Remember:
Namasté
- Extension (warrior I, high lunge, backbends...) will open the front of the hips.
- Abduction (warrior 2, horse, supta baddha konasana...) will open the inside of the hips.
- External rotation with flexion (pigeons, cow face, lotus...) will open the external rotators in the back and outside of the hip.
- Internal rotation alone (pose pictured above) will open the deep external rotators deep and low in the back of the hips.
Namasté
Anatomy images from Thieme Atlas and Textbook of Human Anatomy General Anatomy and Musculoskeletal System, and yoga pose photos from yogajournal.com. Figure 4 utkatasana photo from http://www.carenbaginski.com. Prone internal rotation photo from fitbie.com. Supine hip internal rotation photo from www.fit-pro.com. Parsva dandasana photo from http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com. Archer pose variation photo from www.awakening360.com.
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