Gentle Chair Yoga For Stiff Hips

This gentle chair yoga for stiff hips routine is designed to release hip tension, improve mobility, and help you move with more ease and comfort, all from a chair.

No getting down on the floor, no deep hip openers that strain your joints. Just a slow, accessible practice that gently works with your hips wherever they are today.

In this session, we'll gently work through movements to release tightness and tension in the hips, gently open and mobilise the hip joints, improve flexibility and range of movement, and ease stiffness caused by arthritis, sitting, or limited movement.

Props: A yoga block

Transcript

Hello flowly friends and welcome to this chair session that is focused on your hips. So hopefully it will release a little bit of tension and a little bit of stiffness in this area. You are going to need a nice sturdy chair for this session and of course your beautiful self. You might want to pop your chair on a yoga mat just so it doesn't slip about but as long as the chair is sturdy, That was a mouthful, Then you will be okay. One thing you might need for this session is a block. If you don't have a yoga block maybe a fairly thick book or a couple of books might be helpful just for like one of the poses that we go into. You might not necessarily need it but it's always good to have close by just in case. Okay so whenever you're ready take your seat and let's get started. So we're going to begin with just a few deep breaths here. So if you can sit nice and tall. Make sure your knees are right above your ankles. Let your shoulders relax down. Let's take a big breath in through the nose and find a little bit of length through the upper body and then exhale nice and slowly. Just allowing yourself to just settle into that seated position. Take a big breath in and exhale we let it all go. Let's take one more of those. Big breath in but this time take a bit of a noisy sigh out. Perfect. Just allow your breath to come back to normal and just take a few natural breaths here. Just settling yourself into your seat. As you continue to breathe here just kind of notice how your hips feel right now in this moment and then when you're ready take a nice big breath in again a bit of a sigh out. You could blink open the eyes if you did close them. So we're going to begin with a little hip warm-up. So we are going to start with some hip circles sitting in the chair. You're going to grab hold of the sides of the chair. You could place your hands on your hips as well if you prefer. See what works. I like to hold on to the sides of the chair because I feel like it kind of helps you move around a little bit more. So start to circle around. Think about your hips here as you circle around. Just getting a little bit of blood flow to this area. Perfect. Keep breathing here. Wonderful. And then with all circular movements we take it in the opposite direction. So go the other way. Kind of rolling your hips back and forth as you move around. Perfect. And then come to a little stop. So now we're going to go for a little hip warm-up. We're going to do each side individually. You might want to sit all the way to the back of the chair so your back is supported for this one. Otherwise sit forward but just make sure that your posture is nice and tall. We're going to grab hold of the right leg if you can. Just lifting it up. You're not trying to squeeze it to your chest. You're just lifting it up a little bit. You could interlace your fingers underneath your thigh as well but it is a little bit easier if you grab around the front of the knee for this movement. And all we're going to do is kind of circle the leg and you're bringing your attention right to the top of your thigh here. So ball and socket joint. That's where the top of your thigh meets or top of your femur meets your hip into that socket. And this is just giving us a little bit of blood flow again into this area. Warming it up nicely. So just keep breathing. They don't need to be huge circles but just whatever feels comfortable. Keep breathing of course. Keep breathing all the time. And then lovely when it starts to feel like it's maybe aching just a little bit just stop and then go the other way. So you're just creating that little bit of warmth. And we're just softening up around that area as well making it a little bit more pliable for us to move. Perfect. Take a nice big breath in as we stop and then exhale just lower your leg down. Let's take that to the other side. So lift up left leg however feels comfortable and then as soon as you're ready start to circle in any direction. So that lower half of your leg if you notice mine and my foot it's just very relaxed because we're not working that area. We're thinking about the hip here. So again just keep those circles going until it just starts to feel like it's warmed up or you can feel that kind of the kind of dull achy feeling in that area. Perfect. And then we're going to go the other way slowly gently. Wonderful. Keep breathing. Try and keep your posture nice and tall. If you've got the support of the back of the chair then great. If you don't have the support of the back of the chair but this feels like it's a little bit of a struggle then push yourself to the back of the chair because that might be what you need. You need that just extra little bit of support. Perfect. Come to a little stop. Take a big breath in and exhale. Just let the leg come down. Okay. We're going to take the feet slightly wider now. Maybe about shoulder distance apart. Wants to be nice and comfortable. Really simple little counter pose. We're going to grab the back or the sides of the chair and we're just going to take a little rotation of the knees to the left and then bring them back and slowly switch to the other side. Let's do that a few times. Going left and right each time. So leg swishes or sometimes this is known as windshield wipers. I'm an English girl. I'm a British girl. So leg swishes. We don't say windshield in the UK. We say windscreen. So yeah. Nice little leg swishes. Perfect. Okay. Bring it back to centre. Okay. So now bring your legs back in and we're going to do a little hip opener now for each side. Each side individually. So you're going to want to grab the sides of the chair. Get a good grip and then making sure your right knee is above your ankle. You're going to just come up onto the toes. Right up onto your tiptoes of that right foot. We're going to slide the foot out to the side as wide as we can go. So just see how far you can go. When you get here you're going to feel your hip just gently opening up. You're going to let the heel just lower down to the floor. Now I've just kind of let my left knee move out to the side. Really ideally we want to keep that knee right above the ankle so nothing moves in this left leg. We're going to lift the heel up of that right foot. Up onto those toes again and slowly we're going to come back to centre and let the heel come down. Let's do that a couple more times. Lift the heel, Squeeze it up as much as you can. Take the leg out to the side just sliding it out. Once you get as far as you feel you can go, Gently lower the heel. Inhale lift and then slowly bring it in and drop it down. Last one of these. Squeeze it up, Take it out and then drop it down. Lovely. Squeeze it up, Bring it in and drop it down. Okay, We're going to take it to the other side. So left toes, Squeeze up and then out to the side as far as you can go and then lower down. So just take your time with it, Keeping on that right knee. Mine wants to go out all the time. Lovely. Bring it slowly back in and drop it down. Lift, Slide it out, Drop it down. Squeeze it up, Bring it in and down we go. Last one. Squeeze, Squeeze, Squeeze, Slide it out, Down we go, Lift and then bring it in and down we go. Perfect. So we've kind of warmed up again this area. We're going to take this a little bit of a step higher this time. So we're going to go back to the right leg. We are going to squeeze up onto those toes again and then this time we're going to take an inhale. We're going to lift the knee up. We're going to take the leg all the way out to the side as far as we can. We're holding onto the side of the chair again here. We're dipping the toes. We're not going to put the heel down this time. Lovely. Dip the toes, Take an inhale, Lift and then bring it back to centre and down. I don't want you to rush this so try and you know take your time with it. Have some focus. Again that left knee is going to stay exactly where it is. Hold on to the chair. Posture's nice and tall. Inhale, Lift, Out to the side, Dip the toe. Lift it up, Slowly bring it in and dip the toe. We're not letting the heel come down remember. Inhale, Lift, Open and down. Inhale to lift, Bring it in, Bring it down. Lift it up, Open and down. Really starting to feel it now. Lift, Bring it in, Drop it down. Let's do one more. Lift, Open and down. Lovely. Lift it up, Bring it in, Drop it down. Relax the leg and then you might just want to kind of give yourself a little rub here. So give the muscle or the top of that thigh a little bit of a squeeze, A little bit of a rub and let it rest. Perfect. Let's take it to the other side. So grab hold of the sides of the chair. We are coming up onto those toes. Perfect. When you're ready, Big breath, Lift the knee out to the side, Drop the toes. Just dip in the toes, Inhale lift, Bring it in and dip the toes. We lift up, We take it out, We dip the toes. Lift, Bring it in and down. Lift, Open and drop. Back up, We're bringing it back, Reversing that action. Drop it down. Okay, Two more to go. Inhale, Lift, Open, Down, Up, Bring it in and down. Are you keeping your posture nice and tall? Inhale, Lift, Open, Dip the toe. We lift, We bring it in and drop it down and relax and then same again. Maybe you give your leg a little bit of a rub here. Okay, Let's take it back to our little leg swishes now. So take those feet a little bit wider again, Grabbing the back or the sides of the chair wherever's comfortable. Taking that little swish from left to right, Right to left. Lovely. It's just like a little counter-release. Feels good. Okay, One more time over to the right and then we bring it back to centre. So we're going to target the outer hip now. So we're going to be doing a seated pigeon or you might know it as a little figure four. There's a couple of ways that we can do this but we're going to start by extending the left leg out. So when you extend the leg, If it feels a little funny on the back of your thigh, Sit forward a little bit so you're nice and comfortable. But if you do sit forward, Always make sure that your bottom is nice and secure on the chair. Don't be kind of teetering on the edge where you might fall off. Okay, Then we're going to take this right ankle and we're going to cross it over the top of the knee and the thigh. Now if this feels too much or it doesn't feel accessible, That's fine. We're going to cross a little bit lower down, Maybe near your ankle and this might be then where you stay. Okay, If you are going to take it that little bit deeper, We're going to start to bend into the left knee. If we can, Bring in the ankle underneath your knee. See how it feels. Like I said, You've got that alternative of just extending the leg. See what works for you. Okay, So whatever position we've chosen, The right hand is just going to press nice and gently on the inside of that thigh. Press, Press, Press. Okay, And instantly you kind of feel like there's a little bit of a stretch. If you've got your leg extended, You don't feel it too much on the outer hip. You feel it a little bit more in a hip here, Into your groin, Into your thigh. So you can just hold in place. Okay, Let's take a couple of breaths. We're going to sit nice and tall. Inhale, Exhale. Wonderful. Take a nice big breath in, Exhale. Okay, Now option to take this slightly deeper. If your leg is extended, This is a little bit more difficult to do. So just stay exactly as you are. Just keep breathing. Keep that gentle pressure on your leg. If you've gone for this slightly deeper figure four position, We're going to place both hands on the legs. We're still gently pressing that thigh away. We're going to take an inhale to get tall and then exhale. Just gently lean the torso forward. Try and keep the back nice and flat. It's going to intensify the stretch on your outer hip here. Take a couple of breaths. Same as before. Big breath, Exhale. Inhale and exhale. Wonderful. When you're ready, Take a nice big breath. Roll yourself up and then we're just going to release the leg. Reset your legs. You can bring your knees back into position if you want to. You could extend that right leg out just to give it a little stretch. You could give it a little rub if you need to. So it's always nice to do these little kind of counter things in between just so that everything feels back to normal again. Okay, We're going to take that to the other side. So we're starting with that extended right leg. This time crossing left ankle over the top of the thigh. So you could even stay just in this position if you wanted to and then just gently press. That's going to be a little bit more outer hip. You're going to feel it. You feel it quite intense on your inner thigh as well. Okay, Slightly going deeper. Then we're bending into that right knee, Bringing it back in. Wonderful. Sit nice and tall. Press on the inside of the leg. Let's take a big breath in, Exhale. Imagine you're breathing into that outer hip or wherever it is you're feeling the deepest stretch. Inhale, Exhale. Lovely. One more big breath in and let it go. Perfect. Then we're going to take that little lean forward. So take a nice big breath as you get tall and then exhale. Take that little lean forward only if it feels okay to do. Keep your back nice and flat. Couple of breaths here. Inhale, Exhale. Inhale and let it go. Wonderful. Take an inhale. Slowly lift yourself up. We're releasing those legs. Maybe you extend the left leg out for a moment. Give it a little rub if you need to. Wonderful and then just bend back into the legs. Let's go back to those little leg swishes again. Open those legs up. Grab the sides of the chair. Take your little swish, Swish, Swish from side to side. Swish, Swish. Lovely and then bring yourself back to centre. Let's bring the legs back in. Okay, So now we're going to take ourselves into a seated warrior. So we're going to scooch around to the left side of the chair but just allowing your left leg to come in front of that left side of your chair. Keeping your right leg at the front of the chair. Now make sure that your left knee is right above your ankle and then if you can just sliding the right foot back just as far as feels comfortable. You're going to have this bend in your knee here. Now this is where you might need your block. If this doesn't feel that comfortable, You feel like you need some support for your knee, You're going to grab your block. You're going to pop it underneath the knee. You could add a couple of blocks here as well if you needed to. You don't have to stop at one and remember that you can change the height as well of your block as well if you need to support that way as well. Okay, So you're sliding your foot back just as far as you can. Whatever feels the most comfortable for you and this is where you're going to just stretch out your hip flexor here. So, Nice way to release a little bit of tension here. Now we're going to sit nice and tall making sure that your heart is right over your hips. You're pressing that front foot into the floor. We're going to take an inhale and we're going to sweep the arms forward and then up into the air. We're going to hold this here for a few breaths. If reaching your arms up does not feel comfortable, You can bring your hands to your hips or maybe your left hand grabs the back of the chair and the other hand on your hips. But just sit nice and tall here. Imagine that you're breathing into this hip flexor. Lovely. Let's take a big breath in and let it all go. Nice big inhale and let it go. Wonderful. We're going to release the arms down nice and gently. Remove your prop if you're using it and then just draw this right knee forwards and then we're just going to take a little scooch over to the other side. So, Just take your time here. If you wanted to, You could do the little leg swishes in between. I'm going to come to the right side. So, Right leg is in line with that right side of your chair. The left leg is in line with the front of the chair. We're sliding that left leg back. We've got a nice bend in the knee. We are grabbing our support if we need it. So, It's only optional, The support. If you feel like you don't need it, Then that's fine. I'm just going to slide mine back a little bit further because I just want that little bit more of a stretch here. Remember, It wants to feel comfortable. You don't want to be feeling any pain or discomfort here. Sit nice and tall. Heart right over your hips and then when you're ready, Inhale. Sweep the arms up or bring them to your hips, Wherever is comfortable and we're staying here for a few breaths. Breathing into that hip flexor, Inhale and exhale. Lovely. Nice big breath in and let it go. Wonderful. Nice and gently release your arms down. Let's remove that prop out of the way and then gently just slide that left knee forwards and then just scoot yourself back to the front of the chair. Wonderful. Okay, Let's just take it back into those little leg swishes one more time. Let those legs come wide and take your little swish, Swish, Swish, Swish. That word's been used quite a lot in this session today. Lovely. Taking it back and forth just a couple of times. Wonderful. Bring it back to centre. We're going to bring the legs in together. Come and sit all the way to the back of your chair so you're nice and supported here. Just take a moment to let your hips relax. Maybe you close your eyes for a few moments. Relax your shoulders. Take a deep breath in. Let it all go. Feel the hips gently start to soften, Start to relax. Maybe you focus your attention here as you take a few more deep breaths. Perfect. Wonderful. Then when you're ready, Take a last cleansing breath here. So, Big breath in through your nose and sigh it out through your mouth. So, That brings us to the close of this chair yoga session designed to release stiff hips. I hope that you enjoyed it and hopefully I will see you in the next video. Take good care. Bye.