Part One: What are the Hip Flexors?
0:00-0:38
The hip flexors are one of the most common indirect causes of low back pain that we see in our office. And this is because of where the hip flexors lie. The hip flexors originate from the front of the lumbar spine, travel down through the pelvis, and attach to the front of the hip joint. A lot of times when they are tight, they pull the spine into an into extension. This extension compresses the joints in the back of the spine, so a tight hip flexor can lead to low back pain.
Today we're going to show you how we examine the hip flexors, how we treat the hip flexors and the low back pain that comes along with it. And lastly, we'll show you a good stretch you could do at home to treat that hip flexor tightness right at your house.
Part Two: Diagnosing Hip Flexor Induced Low Back Pain
0:39-1:18
There is one main test we use to determine the status of the hip flexor when we're evaluating a low back patient, it is called the Thomas test. It is a very simple test, the patient is lying on their back when we ask the patient to bring their left knee to their chest and pull. We're looking at the opposite knee to see if this comes off the table here. So in this case, it did no which means that this hip flexor we know is in a good position. On the opposite side, we're looking at the status of the left knee, and you could see how the left knee actually lifts off of the table a bit. I can slide my hand right under here. That's a good indicator that the left hip flexor is a little tight and it could be tugging on that side of the front of the lumbar spine.
Part Three: Treatment
1:19-2:30
This is how we're going to treat the low back pain. Remember the hip flexor is a cause of the low back pain that we're going to address later with exercises, but we still want to make sure that those joints that, that hip flexors pulling against In the low back, are freed up and they're moving properly before we rehab that hip flexor. So we're just going to adjust the low back to start.
Next, we'll just adjust the hip joint, and this is going to be like when you crack your own knuckle and you give it a pull except we're going to do it on a grander scale with the hip. A lot of times the patient will feel a nice pop from the pul. It's not necessarily we're looking for the pop, but when it does pop, it feels pretty good.
Part Four: At-Home Stretch for Tight Hip Flexors
2:31-3:27
I'm going to show you a quick at-home stretch you can do for your hip flexor. I'm sure you've seen this stretch being done a million times at the gym, on the athletic field, but sadly, most people do it incorrectly. If you remember from the beginning of our video, the hip flexor actually originates from the front of the lumbar spine. The spine is a very mobile part of the body, so if you're not controlling your core and you're pulling straight out like this, your lumbar spine is going to starting to bend. We don't want the lumbar spine to bend as we're leaning forward, we want the spine to say nice and stable.
The way we do that is we contract the core. I always tell my patients to brace themselves as if someone was about to punch you in the stomach. Notice that I’m not holding my breath, just squeezing my core. Once I find that I just lean forward so that my belt buckle remains parallel to the floor, and you’ll feel a nice stretch right in the area of the front pocket. So just remember the most important thing is that we just want to make sure we're engaged in that core.
Jesse J. Suess, DC CCSP®
Waldwick Family Chiropractic, LLC
22 Wyckoff Ave., Suite 1
Waldwick, NJ 07463
(201) 972-6121
drjesse@waldwickchiropractic.com
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