Yoga guide
Hip openers are yoga poses that take your thigh towards the end of its range: lunges for the front of the hip, figure four and pigeon for the back and outside, and bound angle and goddess for the inner thigh. Practised regularly, they add some range over weeks, mostly because the stretch becomes easier to tolerate. No trial has tested a hip-opening sequence as such, and the yoga studies that measured the hip are small.
The joint to protect is the knee. Pigeon and lotus need a lot of outward turn at the hip, and if your hip runs out of turn, the knee twists instead. If your hip hurts rather than feels tight, start with our yoga for hip pain guide.
This guide covers what tight hips really are, the best hip openers for each part of the hip, how long to hold them, how to keep your knees safe, strength through the range, who should change which poses, and a free 25-minute routine with a 3D demo of every move.
Lunges open the front of the hip, figure four and pigeon the back and outside, and bound angle, goddess and frog the inner thigh. In a lab study of 20 regular practitioners, many ordinary poses took the hip close to the edges of its range. No trial has tested a hip-opening class or sequence as such.
Over 3 to 8 weeks, stretching mainly raises how much stretch you can tolerate, rather than lengthening the muscle. Some stiffness is real: in a snapshot study, people who sat a lot and moved little had about 6 degrees less hip extension, and hip extension is the hip movement that falls most with age.
Yoga improved lower-body flexibility tests in trials of older adults, and hip flexor stretching raised hip extension within 10 weeks in a well-run trial. The yoga studies that measured the hip itself are small and mostly uncontrolled. Hold each opener for 30 to 60 seconds: across 189 studies, gains levelled off at about 10 minutes of stretching a week for each muscle group.
Pigeon and lotus need a lot of outward turn at the hip, and if your hip runs out of turn, the knee twists instead. The evidence is case reports and injury surveys: people who practise yoga have more meniscus (knee cartilage) injuries than people who don't, and newcomers are advised to avoid lotus. If you feel an opener in your knee, come out of it.
Strength training through a full range adds as much range as stretching, and in a small trial, range gained by stretching didn't show up in movement on its own. So finish with standing poses and strength moves such as bridges and 90/90 lift-offs.
In one series, 71% of yoga practitioners who had keyhole surgery for hip impingement had stopped yoga because of their hip. Replaced hips have dislocated during yoga in case reports, so follow your surgical team's precautions, and keep stances narrow with pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy. If your hip hurts, our yoga for hip pain guide comes first.
Lunges such as low lunge, lizard and high lunge take the thigh behind you and stretch the hip flexors, the muscles at the front of the hip. This movement is hip extension, which falls more with age than any other hip movement.
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Figure four, pigeon, fire log and cow face turn the thigh outwards with the hip bent, and stretch the buttock and the outside of the hip. These are the poses where knees get hurt if the hip runs out of turn, so start with the lying versions.
Bound angle, goddess, wide-legged folds, frog and deep squats take the knees wide and stretch the groin and the inner thigh muscles.
In the lab study, warrior I and II, crescent lunge, pigeon and triangle took the hip towards the end of its range behind you, and downward dog, a forward fold, a seated twist and pigeon towards the end of its range in front. Eagle and the seated twist took the leg across the body, and half moon, eagle and triangle turned it inwards. So a general class opens the hips too.
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Some routines build up to holds of 3 or 4 minutes. That's fine if you enjoy it, but longer holds don't add more range: in one large review, gains levelled off at about 10 minutes of stretching a week for each muscle group, and in another, how long or how often people stretched made no clear difference. Our yin yoga guide covers long holds.
When people stretch for 3 to 8 weeks, they gain range mainly because the stretch becomes easier to tolerate, not because the muscle gets longer: across 26 studies, changes in the muscles and tendons themselves were trivial. So a hip that feels tight often has more range than it lets you use, and gentle, regular practice is how you reach it.
In a cross-sectional study (a snapshot at one point in time, which can't show cause and effect), people who sat for more than 7 hours a day and were active for under 150 minutes a week had about 6 degrees less passive hip extension than active people who sat for under 4 hours. The comparison included 98 people.
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In a survey of 1,683 US adults, hip extension was the only hip or knee movement that fell by more than a fifth of its range from the youngest to the oldest group; the other differences were 3 to 5 degrees. In 674 people aged 2 to 69, range fell with age at every joint measured, and women were more flexible in nearly all joints at every age. In a small lab study, healthy older adults walked using all the hip extension they had, which is one reason the front-of-hip openers matter more with age (our reading).
How far your hip turns depends partly on the shape of your bones: in 20 people, the twist built into the thigh bone was moderately linked with how far the hip turned outwards. Some hips will never make the textbook shape, and forcing them moves the strain to the knee or the lower back (our reading).
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In 600 people, the length of the main hip flexor (the iliopsoas) wasn't linked with back pain, while back-muscle endurance was. In 118 adults, people with back pain had a little less hip flexor range, but body weight, not back pain, explained it. Reviews find that people with back pain have a little less hip range, especially turning inwards, but these are snapshot studies that can't show cause, and one review rated the evidence very low quality.
Yoga helps long-term back pain a little, about as much as other back exercise, in a review of 21 trials. Hip openers can feel good; don't expect them to fix your back.
We found no trial that tested a hip-opening class or sequence. The evidence on this page comes from yoga programmes that measured the hip, from stretching and strength trials, and from injury studies.
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In trials of older adults, yoga improved lower-body flexibility tests by a moderate amount against no exercise (7 trials, 431 people) and by a small amount against other exercise (3 trials, 225 people). Those tests measure more than the hip.
The studies that measured the hip are small and mostly uncontrolled. An 8-week Iyengar programme raised hip extension and stride length in 19 people aged 62 to 83, more in those who practised more at home, but there was no comparison group. Ten weeks of yoga changed hip angles in downward dog in 26 college athletes, in groups not described as random. A year of hatha yoga 3 times a week raised a whole-body flexibility score more than calisthenics in 66 older adults, in groups not described as random.
In a well-run trial of 82 healthy older adults, 10 weeks of twice-daily hip flexor stretching raised passive hip extension compared with stretching the shoulders, and lengthened the stride of people who had started with limited hip extension when walking. Active and passive hip flexor stretches worked equally well in 33 young patients over 6 weeks, and 3 weeks of stretching raised passive hip extension in 20 adults, with no comparison group.
In 11 trials that compared them directly (452 people), strength training and stretching added the same range. Across 55 studies, resistance training improved range by a moderate amount, as much as stretching, though training with body weight alone wasn't clearly effective. Slow lowering (eccentric) training gave large gains in leg range across 17 studies.
After 6 weeks of hip stretching, 24 young men had much more passive range but used no more of it in lunges, standing hip extension, a twist and reach or on an elliptical trainer, and 3 weeks of hip flexor stretching didn't change how 20 adults ran. In 39 dance students, strengthening at the end of the range, or gentle stretching, improved the range they could lift the leg through more than harder stretching did.
Hold each opener for 30 to 60 seconds, once or twice each side, as our yoga for flexibility guide suggests. Across 189 studies of 6,654 adults, gains from regular static stretching levelled off at about 10 minutes a week for each muscle group, whatever the intensity and however often it was spread. A second review, of 77 studies, found no clear effect of dose at all, so treat 10 minutes as a rough target.
Most days while you build range, and 2 or 3 days a week to keep it, as our flexibility guides say. Our editorial starting point: the 25-minute yoga for tight hips routine 2 or 3 times a week, with a few openers on most other days, judged after 6 to 8 weeks.
How hard people stretched made no difference across 189 studies, and gentle stretching did better than harder stretching for the range dancers could use. Stay at a strong but comfortable stretch you can breathe through, never a sharp one.
Start with a few minutes of walking, marching or slow hip circles. In a single-session trial, two 1-minute bouts of slow hip circles raised hip rotation about as much as static stretching did.
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End with one or two strength moves through the range, such as 90/90 lift-offs, bridges or warrior II, and use your new range in standing poses. Strength training adds range as well as stretching, and strength at the end of the range builds range you can use.
The hip is a ball and socket that turns easily; the knee is close to a hinge and turns only a little when it's bent. Pigeon, lotus, fire log and cow face all need a lot of outward turn at the hip. If your hip runs out of turn, the knee twists to make up the difference, and the cartilage inside it (the meniscus) can be pinched. That's how teachers and our move pages explain it; no study has measured the load on the knee in pigeon or lotus.
The evidence is case reports and injury surveys. In 9 observational studies, people who practised yoga were more likely to have had a meniscus injury than people who didn't (the odds were about 1.7 times as high). Lotus was among the poses most often named in 76 published cases of harm from yoga, and meniscus tears were among the injuries seen on scans of 38 people hurt in yoga. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) says the knee or lower leg is the part of the body most often injured in yoga.
The reviewers of the case reports and NCCIH both advise newcomers to avoid lotus. In one case report, a man who habitually sat in a modified lotus developed a severe injury to the sciatic nerve, with a dropped foot that had barely recovered a year later. Stand up if a leg goes numb or tingles.
If you feel a hip opener in your knee rather than your hip or buttock, come out of it, then (our suggestion, from the move pages):
Skip lotus and half lotus: their pages say they're not for knee replacements or known meniscus damage. Keep deep squats shallow and sit on a block in kneeling poses. Our yoga for knee pain guide has the detail.
Standing hip circles: 3 slow circles each way with each leg, 20 to 30 seconds a circle; 90/90 switches: 10 slow switches, pausing at the ends; cat-cow: 8 slow waves (the moves' pages).
Low lunge and the half-kneeling hip flexor stretch: 30 to 60 seconds each side (our flexibility guides' hold). Lizard: 30 to 60 seconds, about 5 to 10 slow breaths, each side, 2 rounds, and the world's greatest stretch: 4 slow reps each side (the moves' pages). High lunge: 5 slow breaths each side, with the back knee down if balance is the limit (our editorial starting point).
3D demoLow lunge (Anjaneyasana)Beginner · No equipment
3D demoHalf-kneeling hip flexor stretchBeginner · No equipment
3D demoLizard pose (Utthan Pristhasana)Intermediate · No equipment
3D demoHigh lunge (crescent lunge, Ashta Chandrasana)Intermediate · No equipment
3D demoWorld's greatest stretchIntermediate · No equipmentThe lying figure four with your foot on the floor: 20 to 30 seconds, 2 to 4 times each side, and fire log: 30 to 60 seconds, about 5 to 10 slow breaths, each side, 2 rounds (the moves' pages). The reclined figure four: 45 seconds each side, and pigeon preparation: 60 seconds each side with a cushion under the front hip (our yoga for tight hips routine). Standing figure four: 30 seconds each side, fingertips on a wall (our editorial starting point).
3D demoLying figure-four stretch (ankle on the knee)Beginner · No equipment
3D demoReclined figure four (eye of the needle, Sucirandhrasana)Beginner · No equipment
3D demoStanding figure four (chair pigeon, Eka Pada Utkatasana)Intermediate · A wall
3D demoPigeon preparation (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana prep)Intermediate · No equipment
3D demoFire log pose (Agnistambhasana)Intermediate · No equipmentBound angle: 60 seconds, sitting on a cushion (our yoga for tight hips routine). Reclining bound angle: 2 to 5 minutes with a support under each thigh; frog rocks: 12 slow rocks; happy baby: 30 to 60 seconds, about 5 to 10 slow breaths, 2 rounds (the moves' pages). Goddess: 5 breaths, 2 or 3 times, and the wide-angle seated fold: 60 seconds sitting tall, folding only as far as your back stays long (our editorial starting points). Deep squat: 60 seconds, holding a support (our daily mobility routine).
3D demoBound angle pose (Baddha Konasana)Beginner · No equipment
3D demoReclining bound angle pose (Supta Baddha Konasana)Beginner · Firm cushion
3D demoGoddess pose (Utkata Konasana)Beginner · No equipment
3D demoFrog rockIntermediate · No equipment
3D demoHappy baby pose (Ananda Balasana)Beginner · No equipment
3D demoWide-angle seated forward fold (Upavistha Konasana)Intermediate · No equipment
3D demoDeep squat holdIntermediate · No equipment90/90 lift-offs: 3 holds of 5 to 8 seconds each way, each side; hip airplanes: 2 sets of 5 slow turns each leg, holding a wall; Cossack squats: 6 slow shifts each side, holding the last one (the moves' pages). Bridges: 10 slow lifts; side-lying leg raises: 2 sets of 10 slow lifts each side; warrior II: 5 breaths each side, twice (our editorial starting points).
Lotus and half lotus: skip them as a beginner, with knee trouble or after a knee replacement, and sit in easy pose on a cushion instead. Full king pigeon adds a deep backbend to the knee load: use pigeon preparation. Cow face: sit on a block, back off if you feel it inside the knee, and skip it with pain on the outside of the hip.
The set-up and the knee check follow the move page's instructions and caution; the 30 to 60 second hold follows our flexibility guides. No study has measured knee loads in pigeon, so the knee check is a precaution, not a trial finding.
See the movement on the 3D figure: Pigeon preparation (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana prep)
Pigeon, figure four, cow face, eagle and lying twists with the knee pulled across can squeeze the tendons on the side of the hip. Our yoga for hip pain guide and its routine cover what to do instead.
In 42 yoga practitioners who had keyhole surgery for hip impingement, 71% had stopped yoga because of their hip, and 93% went back after surgery, at an average of about 5 months. Tears of the labrum (the rim of cartilage around the hip socket) appear among yoga injuries on scans, and surgeons note that a slightly shallow hip socket is common in people from high-flexibility sports, yoga among them. Many poses take the hip to its limits, so work up to a pinch at the front of the hip, not into it, as our yoga for hip pain guide says.
Your surgical team's precautions come first. While you recover, the NHS advice is not to sit with your legs crossed, bend your hip more than 90 degrees (a right angle), or bend down to touch your feet or ankles.
Case reports describe three replaced hips that dislocated during yoga, from 16 months to 17 years after surgery: moving into a shoulder stand, in a standing forward fold and in warrior I. The surgeons in the warrior I report now advise caution with warrior I and II, crescent lunge and pigeon after a replacement done from the front. Yet in a series of 14 yoga teachers with replacements done from the front, all returned to teaching and to 14 classic poses at about 2 months, with no complications over about 5 years. Ask before deep crossing, deep bending, wide turned-out poses or deep lunges, and tell the teacher which approach your surgeon used.
With pelvic girdle pain, the NHS lists standing on one leg and moving your legs apart among the things that make it worse, and suggests keeping your knees together when getting in and out of a car. Keep your knees together as you change position, and keep wide stances such as goddess and warrior II narrow, as our pregnancy yoga guide says. In later pregnancy, the NHS advises against lying flat on your back for more than a few minutes, so prop yourself up for lying openers.
If you're hypermobile, more range isn't the goal. The NHS advice is "do not overextend your joints just because you can", and its main treatment is improving muscle strength and fitness so your joints are better protected. Spend most of the session on strength through the range, and hold openers short of your end range (our hypermobility guide has more).
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With osteoporosis, sit up tall in bound angle and wide-angle poses rather than folding forward deeply: the UK osteoporosis consensus advises avoiding loaded or end-of-range bending in exercise such as yoga. Eye pressure rose quickly in head-down yoga poses in a lab study, so with glaucoma or uncontrolled high blood pressure, keep wide-legged folds brief or stay upright.
Start with our yoga for tight hips routine 2 or 3 times a week (our editorial starting point): a moving warm-up, holds for the front, back and inner hip, and a strength move. The hip mobility and tight hip flexor routines add more strength through the range; if your hip hurts, use the yoga for hip pain routine instead.
A hip-opening yoga sequence: low lunge, lizard, goddess, pigeon, bound angle and happy baby.
25 minBeginner10 movesA wallA 15-minute hip opener: 90/90 switches, windshield wipers, CARs, Cossack squats, frog and pigeon.
15 minIntermediate8 movesA wallHips that feel tight: a tucked hip flexor stretch, then band knee drives, leg raises, dead bugs, bridges and lunges. Strength through range loosens hips too.
15 minBeginner8 movesA band, An anchor pointA 35-minute yin-style session: seated and lying poses held for 2 to 4 minutes with slow breathing, finishing with legs up the wall and a long rest.
35 minBeginner9 movesA wallA 25-minute yoga sequence for the hamstrings, hips, inner thighs, spine and shoulders, holding each pose for 30 to 60 seconds, as in the stretching trials.
25 minBeginner12 movesNo equipmentA 12-minute routine to move every joint through its range under control: slow neck, shoulder, hip and ankle circles, spine and hip rotation, and deep squats.
12 minBeginner10 movesA wallTwenty-five minutes of hip-friendly yoga: lying and standing hip strength, a mild hip flexor stretch and a supported rest, with no crossed legs or deep bends.
25 minBeginner13 movesA band, A wallThese are the same warning signs as our yoga for hip pain guide, with three added for the knee. A&E means accident and emergency. In the US, call 911 for 999, and use your doctor's urgent line or urgent care for NHS 111.
Get help straight away for any of these:
In many areas you can refer yourself to NHS physiotherapy without seeing a GP.
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A sudden clunk or pop with pain, or a leg that suddenly looks shorter or turned, is the dislocation picture in the case reports: don't walk on it, and go to A&E (our wording, from the case reports). Our hip replacement guide lists the other warning signs after surgery, such as signs of a blood clot or an infection.
Our suggestions, from the move pages and our knee pain guide:
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Ease off a deep fold, lunge or twist that brings a sharp pinch deep in the groin. Get a catching, locking or giving-way feeling in the hip checked.
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Call your midwife or GP if you have pelvic pain and it's hard to move around, it hurts to get out of a car or turn over in bed, or it's painful going up or down stairs.
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We found no study that tests the idea: a search of the research found two records, both unrelated. People sometimes feel emotional in a long, quiet hold, and that's fine, but it isn't evidence of emotion stored in the hips.
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Hip flexor length wasn't linked with back pain in 600 people, body weight explained hip flexor range in 118, and the evidence linking hip range with back pain is very low quality. Yoga helps long-term back pain a little, about as much as other exercise.
In one cross-sectional study, people who sat a lot and moved little had about 6 degrees less hip extension, which can't show that sitting caused it. Hip flexor stretching raised hip extension within weeks in a trial of older adults.
How far your hip turns depends partly on your bone shape, and forcing lotus moves the twist into the knee. Lotus is among the poses most often named in reports of harm, newcomers are advised to avoid it, and long sits in a modified lotus have injured a nerve.
Pain in the knee means the knee is taking the twist the hip can't. The pose's page says to swap to the reclined figure four if the front knee complains, and people who practise yoga have more meniscus injuries than people who don't.
Gains levelled off at about 10 minutes of stretching a week for each muscle group, however it was spread, and a second review found no effect of dose. Long holds are fine if you enjoy them.
Stretching for 3 to 8 weeks changes how much stretch you tolerate, with trivial changes in the muscles and tendons across 26 studies. Range comes first from tolerance, not from tissue "releasing".
Very flexible people need strength and control, not more range: the NHS says "do not overextend your joints just because you can". A slightly shallow hip socket is common among people from high-flexibility sports who need hip surgery.
Yoga poses that take the thigh towards the end of its range at the hip: lunges for the front of the hip, figure four and pigeon for the back and outside, and bound angle, goddess and frog for the inner thigh. Most classes use a mix, and many standing poses open the hips too.
Start lying down or standing, where you control the depth: the lying figure four, a low lunge with the back knee padded, bound angle sitting on a cushion, and the standing figure four at a wall. Move on to lizard, pigeon and fire log once those are comfortable.
Usually a mix of how much stretch you're used to and how you spend your day. In one snapshot study, people who sat for more than 7 hours a day and were inactive had about 6 degrees less hip extension, and hip extension is the range that falls most with age. Bone shape also limits how far some hips turn, which no amount of stretching changes.
About 30 to 60 seconds, once or twice each side, on most days while you build range and 2 or 3 days a week to keep it. Across 189 studies, gains levelled off at about 10 minutes of stretching a week for each muscle group, so much longer holds don't add much.
When your hip runs out of outward turn, the bent knee twists to make up the difference, which can pinch its cartilage. Put a cushion under the front hip, keep the front foot flexed and draw the front heel closer to your groin, or switch to the lying figure four. Pain inside the knee means come out.
They can feel good, but tight hips haven't been shown to cause back pain, and yoga helps long-term back pain only a little, about as much as other exercise. Our yoga for back pain guide covers what helps.
No study has tested the idea that emotion is stored in the hips. Feeling emotional in a long, quiet hold is common and fine; it doesn't mean something was stored there.
Gentle ones usually are. With pelvic girdle pain, the NHS lists moving your legs apart and standing on one leg among things that make it worse, so keep stances narrow and your knees together as you change position. Our pregnancy yoga guide covers which poses to change.
Follow your surgical team's precautions first: the NHS recovery advice is not to cross your legs, bend your hip past a right angle or reach down to your feet. Replaced hips have dislocated during yoga years after surgery in case reports, so ask before deep crossing, deep bending, deep lunges or wide turned-out poses.
Yin holds poses for several minutes, which many people find relaxing, but longer holds don't add more range than 30 to 60 seconds. Support your knees with cushions and don't sink into a pinch.
Not for most people, but they can be if you force them: people who practise yoga have more meniscus injuries, and lotus is among the poses most often linked with harm. If you're very flexible already, the NHS advice is not to overextend your joints just because you can.
Warrior II, goddess, a high lunge and the standing figure four open the hips while building leg strength and balance. Hold a wall for the figure four, and narrow the wide stances if you have pelvic girdle pain.
Exercise education, not a personal prescription, and clinical review of these guides is pending. If you are pregnant, have a health condition such as glaucoma, high blood pressure or osteoporosis, or have had recent surgery, check with a doctor, midwife or physiotherapist before starting, and stop for sharp or increasing pain. Health disclaimer.
