Compression/pinching when stretching

[thanners]

Hi everyone,

I wasn't entirely sure which subforum was the most appropriate to ask 'general' questions on stretching and technique, so my apologies if I was meant to ask this elsewhere.

Various stretches involving pulling the knee up the chest, or keeping the front of the leg against the chest, such as the lying rotation stretch early in the Stretching&Flexibility book, or the lunge bent-leg hamstring stretch, cause a compression feeling in the front of the hip, or a pain going along the inside-front of the leg, into the groin. For the lying stretch, the book states to try bringing the leg around from the side towards the armpit. This doesn't seem to do a great deal to relieve it for me, however.

Is it related to my incredibly tight hip flexors? (I was tight enough at the GB seminar in Canberra that Kit demonstrated the hip flexor stretch on me. Unfortunately, I wasn't as diligent with it as I should have been for the next couple of months after that, and have only resumed in the past month with being really consistent with all my stretching)

[Kit_L]

Is it related to my incredibly tight hip flexors?

Very likely, Adam. But be aware too that as you work this area, the sensation in the hip especially will change (I am going to shoot a short YT clip soon showing a simple partner assist for this, too). And after you stretch your hip flexors go back to the pose with this sensation, and try it again. If the sensation changes at all that's a clue that you're on the right track. In a few individuals the joint itself and the labrum (tissue around the edge of the joint) is limiting the movement and that will change in time too.

Lastly be aware that in the strongly flexed hip position the adductors are extensors of the hip joint and you won't read it anywhere in any anatomy text (but anyone who has done a max. back squat session can tell you that immediately!). The point here is that in many people when the hip joint is strongly flexed you feel a very powerful stretch in the adductors themselves. This too will change in time and as your legs apart flexibility improves. Actually some people who have perfect side splits still experienced this adductor stretch sensation in this position so it's probably a matter of the adductors or the inner hamstrings adapting to the demands of this position.

If I were a betting man though, I would be putting my money on the hip flexors: very often they are simply not soft enough/relaxed enough to get out of the way.

[thanners]

Oops, I did not realise you had replied to this already! Thanks for the prompt reply, sorry for my own late one. I have been doing more work on my hip flexors anyway, just because it's such a huge deficiency of mine, and I've also been doing some light stretching of the hip flexors prior to doing this stretch, too. Now most of the feeling is in the inside part, in the groin (edit: having just done the stretch again, actually, I'd say I just have a poor awareness of the sensation--it's still in the same place). I shall just stretching, though, and see how it feels.

Also, the explanation of muscles not being soft/relaxed enough to get out of the way really helps clear a lot of things in my head when trying to understand why sometimes muscles other than the obvious ones can restrict certain poses.