This technique is one of many ways to open your hips. I’m going to show you something done in a traditional yoga class down on a yoga mat, and then how to modify it using a chair. Now this is not your everyday chair, but you can use a dining room chair pressed up against a wall, or really any other surface.

And the cool thing about it is that your hip moves in six different planes. It’s a huge ball and socket joint. So there’s no exact height that you have to have. Even a table up here works just as well.

So basically if this were my yoga mat, I’d have my left foot forward and my right leg back. It looks like this from the side. You can use a prop in front to help you to feel a little bit closer to the floor.

Using your back foot as a lever, press your hips forward and back. Concentrate on your breathing. You do want the weight in your front heel and your toes relaxed. So occasionally give your toes a little wiggle.

If you get tired, put your back knee down. You can play around with the angle of your front foot. So if my foot’s at 12 and I want to turn it to 2 o ‘clock, my knee goes along for the ride. Using yoga blocks or any other props you have handy, you can start experimenting with going deeper by coming down to your elbows.

Think of your hips as something that’s a project. You don’t just open them in one day. And you don’t want to kick the door down and be aggressive. You want to knock on the door gently and wait for your hips to open.

And this all happens through slow, deep breathing. So say I were here, I might stay here for five deep breaths. If I got a little anxious, I could lift that knee, move a little bit. If I get tired, I can come back down.

Then I might say, okay, I’m ready. I’m going to go deeper. Everybody’s different. In fact, we’re even different on the left hip to the right. So really take your time and create a setup that works for you.

If getting on the floor like this is too intense, which is very possible for many people, and I actually enjoy this a lot, one myself, using a chair is a huge modification that makes the hip stretching much more accessible.

So you take one foot and place it up on the chair. The block is really not even necessary. Square your hips and look back at your back leg. You want to make sure that your foot is straight and not turned out.

If your foot is turned out, your pelvis is going this way. So you want to face what you’re doing. Bring your hands on the inside of your foot. You may already experience a pretty good stretch here. If you want, you can pop back and use that same levering technique, lifting and lowering your back heel.

As your breath flows and your hip starts to stretch, you might find it available to come down to your elbow. Notice that I’m on the left elbow with the right foot. Bringing the right elbow down is a whole other ball game.

In fact, getting your right elbow to touch your right heel or vice versa is one of the deepest stretches for your hip. Besides putting your head behind your leg or your foot behind your head. Concentrate on your breathing, enjoy this position or this position, and be creative with your turning out of your foot and remember your knee always goes with it.

Remember to do both sides, focus on your breath, and just make it an experiment where you’re feeling the different chambers of your hips that might need opening. Doing this daily would be ideal, but even throughout the week a couple times.

And hold it for five minutes, half on each side.