Hip Opening: Square Pose

The body is a fickle creature. It tends to hold stress and tension for a good long while. We often consider our shoulders as the carriers of stress, but did you know your hips play a big role too? Here’s a quick and simple hip opening exercise to help move all the drama out of the way. Cause mamas ain’t got no time for any more drama.

Hips don’t lie

Let’s first look at the physical side of why your hips may be plaguing you. A lot of it comes down to simple ergonomics. We sit. A lot. I bet you’re sitting right now.

From the moment we begin our day, to the last breaths before bed, the vast majority of most people’s day is spent sitting. We sit to eat breakfast. Sit during our commutes. Sit at work. Come home and sit on the couch to unwind. The difficulty comes when noticing tension and stiffness in the hips and lower back because the body has grown so accustomed to resting with the hip joint at a 90 or so degree angle, that re-positioning the joint for strength and mobility can be a long road.

To further the issue, lower back pain can often be a manifestation of core weakness as the body, unable to fully support strong posture, places weight into the lower lumbar. This expression of lordosis, or swayback, is deepened by weak and open glutes and tight or shortened hip flexors. Basically, the back of the hips are long and the fronts are short. Just like the shape they make when you’re sitting.

See the problem?

Moving on from the purely physical aspect of hip tension. Let’s talk about the areas of the body and their related roles in yoga theory. The hips have a really interesting role in our lives… they are where fear likes to live. Not just small fears like spiders and snakes. Nope, the hips control the big guns. Like the fear of failure and disappointment.

Mortality.

The hips can tell a really interesting story if you’re ready to listen. We consider the front of the body to be forward-facing and an indicator of our relationship with the future. Tights hip flexors can then be theorized to represent a fear of the future. The same can be said with the back body and the past. The hip and pelvis area also houses our second chakra. The sacral chakra is responsible for all things related to reproduction, our sense of taste, and our expression of love for ourselves. So tension here can mean you’re relationship with yourself is struggling.

Fear for the future. A fear of letting go of the past. The all too common fear of loving and believing in yourself. The hips are like a vault where things go that you just can’t get over.

Fear in all directions.

So let’s channel our favourite snow queen and learn how to let it go. The answer is in opening the hips but let me also say that strengthening the hips plays a vital role here. If the physical side of hip tension is plaguing you, I suggest spending equal attention to strengthening the entire core as you do on mobility exercises. There can be no yin, without yang.

Square Pose

This posture is rough in the beginning. I’m talking brutal. You will need a ton of props. You will have to convince yourself that I’m not trying to destroy you. And you WILL have to breathe through the tension by using your deep breathing. Why start with such a deep pose? Because there are a ton of ways to make it more comfortable and it is infinitely more difficult to cheat the stretch than in pigeon, it’s much more popular counterpart.

Step By Step

1. Sit down.
2. Fold one leg in, keeping the heel and knee in line with each other. Avoid the urge to bring the heel close to the body. The goal is to make the shin parallel with the body.
3. Take the other leg all the way over top, lifting the hip off the ground, and planting the foot on the opposite side of the first knee.
4. Stay here for 5–10 slow breathes.
5. Take your time to shift the top leg off the ground and the hip back down.
6. Placing the top ankle bone on top of the bottom knee.
7. You can stay exactly here. Even hugging the top knee in towards the chest.
8. Allow the top knee to float down towards the bottom ankle. Imagining that one day the legs will stack knee to ankle bone, ankle bone to knee.
9. Gauging where the tension is, grab your yoga blocks, or even a few thick books.
10. You can place support between the top knee and bottom ankle, as well as, between the bottom knee and the floor.
11. Breathe.
12. Staying here with a tall spine and lifting off the low back for 2–3 minutes (no more than 5).
13. You can intensify the stretch, wherever you are, by placing the finger tips on the floor in front. Paying attention not to round the spine.
14. Try to close your eyes while holding and breathing to the area that is gripping and holding tension.
15. When it is time to release, lean back onto the hands and unfold the legs.
16. Release tension by taking the feet wider than the shoulders, with bent knees, dropping legs to one side at a time in a windshield wiper motion.
17. Repeat the same steps on the second side.

Using square pose is a great way to relieve tension that is building in the hips and help the body get back towards a neutral and healthy state. Consider focusing on hip openings whenever you’re feeling stuck. It may be just the thing to help you push past the fears.