At some point, you’ve probably felt that uncomfortable stiffness of tight hips, whether it was due to too much time sitting or a hard workout. This hip-opening yoga routine can be just what you need when that occurs to loosen up your tight lower body.
In the second installment of Sweat With SELF’s Yoga for Beginners series, yoga instructor Rita Murjani—the chief of staff at mindful living brand Aduri, who teaches at NYC-based studios SkyTing and Equinox—demonstrates a yoga flow that feels oh-so-good for your tight hips and surrounding muscles. During the course of the 45-minute beginner yoga routine, you’ll seamlessly transition through nearly 20 popular yoga poses, which work to loosen up tightness in your glutes, hip flexors, quads, hamstrings, and calves.
In this video, Murjani will take you through moves like the bound ankle pose, cat-cow, downward dog, crescent lunge, pyramid pose, baby cobra, forward fold, child’s pose, and happy baby. A particularly hip-friendly flow? You’ll go from the figure four to the warrior III to the warrior II pose, a transition which stretches your glutes, hamstrings, and hip adductors. Because this flow also includes some single-leg work, you’ll also be honing your balance too.
During the course of this hip-opening yoga routine, Murjani will also have you focus on your breath, which can help you ease into the stretches and get more out of each of them. (Plus, it’ll help you feel more centered and relaxed as well!) And if some of the moves seem a little too challenging? That’s where modifications come in. Throughout the course of the video, Murjani will teach you how to use props such as yoga blocks and blankets to shorten the range of motion in certain poses, which can help you learn how to ease into them.
Ready for 45 minutes of lower-body love? Unroll your yoga mat, gather your props, and get started with this feel-good hip-opening yoga routine!
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