Do You Sit Over 5 Hours a Day?

5 Easy Stretches to Help You Rescue Hip Mobility, Relieve Pain, and Feel Younger in Under 10 Minutes

Baxter Blackwood

Mar 21, 2023

Hey you,

Do you sit in a chair longer than 5 hours a day?

You might be destroying your hips if so.

According to Harvard Health, sitting for long periods of time can:

Increase pain
Impair walking and balance
Stiffen your hip flexors, hamstrings, and joints
Lead to lower back pain and knee stiffness
Contribute to health risks like obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome

That might sound scary, but don’t worry.

Today I’m here to help you and walk you through 5 easy stretches you can do in under 10 minutes to protect yourself and maintain mobility.

But first, a let’s do a quick recap:

Last week I introduced you to my friend stretching and how it completely changed my life, turning me from a new-ACL cripple to a flexible fiend:

Real quick, let’s revisit a few key points:

Mobility is the 1st thing we lose as we get older. According to Stanford School of Medicine Professor Dr. Andrew Huberman, after we turn 20, we lose 10% every decade.
The good news? You can offset these losses through stretching.
The most effective stretch for long term mobility is static stretching, which is just holding a stretch in place for 30-60 seconds.
Evidence-based static stretching protocol:
1. Never push into the pain. The stretch should feel nice and light.
2. Hold each side for 60 seconds total. You can either do 2 sets of 30 seconds or just 1 set of 60. I prefer the latter for simplicity.
3. Get into the habit of doing these stretches at least 5x per week. It’s only 10 minutes, but it has a huge ROI on your future quality of life. Remember: we lose 10% every year if we don’t stretch.

With those in mind, let’s get to the highest yield stretches that I learned during Tier 1 hockey (shoutout to Coach Jon if you ever read this, thank you).

These will help you:

Relieve pain in your hips and back
Regain and maintain mobility
Loosen tight legs and hips
Protect you against aging

Lessss go.

1. Hip Flexor

Get on one knee.
Put your Right foot out in front of you.
Bend your Right leg about 90 degrees.
Squeeze your Right glute.
Push your hips forward until you feel a light stretch in your Right quad and hip.
Keep an upright posture to help feel the stretch.

2. 90 / 90

Put your legs at 90 degree angles.
Lean over your front leg until you feel a nice stretch in your glute (butt).
With your body leaned over, turn your head left, right, and in different ways to stretch different parts of your glute.
This is my #1 go-to stretch for any hip, butt, or back pain.

3. Groin

Put your Left foot in line with your Right knee.
Squeeze your Right butt. Push your hips forward, then to the Left.
Shift your weight to your left foot until you feel a light stretch.
It’s totally fine if your Left knee comes over your toe: focus on a nice stretch in your groin.

4. Figure 4

Bend your Right leg and cross it over your Left.
Interlock your hands on the back of your left leg.
Pull your Left leg to your chest while also pushing your Right leg out.
Relax your back and head on the floor.

5. Butterfly

I’m not in pain here, just focusing on feeling the stretch :)

Anchor yourself on a wall.
Keep your back upright on the wall.
Put your feet together and use your hands to bring your feet closer to your body.
Push your knees towards the floors.
You can use your hands to help out here.
If you have Dumbbells, you can stack those on top of your knees to help with the stretch.
Remember, always keep a light stretch. No pain.