Relaxing stiff muscles in the lower body, such as hamstrings and quadriceps, can significantly impact your exercise routine and recovery process. Incorporating a lower-body yoga sequence into your regimen can help you achieve this.
Perhaps you’re striving to perfect your deadlift form, but you struggle to comfortably perform the hip hinge movement. Or you’re aiming to boost your running pace, but progress seems to have stalled. While there are numerous elements contributing to enhancing strength or cardio performance, relaxing stiff lower body muscles can provide substantial benefits.
So, what has caused these muscles to become as tight as rubber bands? Excessive sitting is a common cause, according to Jen Landesberg, a London-based yoga teacher, RYT, and instructor on the fitness app EvolveYou. The American Council on Exercise (ACE) suggests that prolonged sitting causes hamstring muscles to contract, leading to the familiar feeling of tightness. Your hip flexors, a set of muscles at the front of your body including part of your quadriceps and your psoas, can also tighten.
“From your car to your desk to your sofa, your quads and hamstrings remain in the same position,” she tells SELF. “This continuous contraction shortens your muscles.”
Conversely, physical activity can also lead to stiffness. Cardio exercises, such as running, and strength training, particularly when involving heavy weights and compound movements like deadlifts or squats, can result in delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), as per ACE. This soreness can cause your muscles to stiffen, leading to a feeling of tightness. (It’s common to experience DOMS in your quads and hamstrings following a lower-body workout. However, if you feel acute pain, or the discomfort persists for several days, consult a physical therapist or doctor.)
Yoga-based movements or stretches can counteract this stiffness. Landesberg suggests that spending just about 10 minutes a day doing a few poses can alleviate muscle tension.
The benefits are not just for everyday life but also for your workouts: it can enhance exercise performance by enabling your muscle groups to work together more efficiently, improving your range of motion. Additionally, Landesberg notes, relieving this tightness using yoga-influenced movements helps improve joint mobility, increase blood flow to your muscles (which aids recovery) and directly relieve tension in your lower back and hips.
Landesberg designed the four-move, lower-body yoga sequence below specifically to relax your tight quads and hamstrings. You can use it as a standalone routine to counteract prolonged sitting, but it’s also excellent as a post-workout cool-down stretch. By repeating key positions like the high crescent lunge, downward dog, low lunge, and lizard pose, you’ll relax your lower body and dissipate tension.
The Sequence
Requirements: Yoga mat or a carpeted floor for good grip.
Poses:
- High crescent lunge
- Downward dog
- Low lunge
- Lizard pose
Instructions
Try to maintain each pose for 30 seconds, approximately equivalent to five deep breaths. Transition from one pose to the next without resting. Complete three rounds.
- High Crescent Lunge
Start by taking a large step forward with your left foot in a staggered stance, with your feet nearly the length of a mat apart.
Bend your front knee and keep your back leg straight with the heel raised off the floor. Try to bend your front leg so your thigh is parallel to the floor.
Align your hips towards the front.
Extend your arms towards the ceiling on either side of your head and stretch up as you press into the mat and feel the stretch in your hips.
Hold for at least 5 breaths or 30 seconds, and then repeat on the other side. - Downward Dog
Starting from the plank pose, raise your buttocks and press back into the downward dog.
Spread your fingers wide. Work on straightening your legs and lowering your heels towards the ground. If your legs are particularly tight, bend your knees slightly to make the stretch more comfortable.
Relax your head between your arms, and direct your gaze through your legs or up towards your belly button.
Hold for 5 breaths or 30 seconds. - Low Lunge
Start in a staggered stance, with your feet nearly mat-length apart by taking a large step forward with your left foot.
Bend your front knee and keep your back leg straight and heel lifted off the floor. Try to bend your front leg so that your thigh is parallel to the floor.
Align your hips towards the front.
Extend your arms towards the ceiling on either side of your head and stretch up as you press into the mat and feel the stretch in your hips.
Lower your back knee to the floor, keeping the leg extended long and the shin flat on the mat.
Hold for at least 5 breaths or 30 seconds, and then repeat on the other side.
Like the crescent lunge, this move also stretches your hip flexors and quads, but it should feel less challenging as your back shin rests on the floor. - Lizard Pose
Move into a low lunge and steer your left foot out wide to the edge of your mat. Place both your hands on the floor on the inside of your left foot.
Hold this position if it provides enough stretch for you. If you’re seeking a deeper stretch, you can place your forearms on the floor.
For an even deeper stretch (as shown in the picture), roll onto the outer edge of your left foot, allowing your knee to open away from your body. Keep your right hand on the floor for support, and use the left to gently push your left knee away from your body.
Hold for at least 5 breaths or 30 seconds, and then repeat on the other side.
This position stretches the outer hip (adductor) muscles, including the gluteus medius, providing relief to tight hamstrings.
The poses are demonstrated by Devon Stewart, a yoga instructor and sexual and reproductive health doula based in Harlem, New York.
