It’s All in the Hips
Drawing of a dancer by Julian Williams
What do our breathing patterns, posture, low back, and leg muscles have in common? A relationship with our hips. Whether we can feel the connection or not, our hips are a major determining factor in our ability to breathe efficiently and to navigate low back pain or discomfort.
We each have tendencies and patterns surrounding the way we use our muscles. Some of these repeated habits are good and encourage healthy relationships between individual muscles and muscle groups. Of course some of our tendencies are not productive, and create a strained relationship in the corresponding muscle use. The way we walk, sit, stand, breathe, hold our instruments, move with our instruments, and sleep can all be culprits of creating inefficient movement pathways.
My first introduction to the incredible importance of our hips was in my lessons with flutist Jean Ferrandis. In my first lesson with Jean, we spent most of the lesson loosening standing posture and allowing freedom of movement around the hips by practicing the motion of an underhand toss. My amazement at the resonance and freedom of breath that underhand toss created solidified my fascination with the hips.
Perhaps some of the fascination was fueled by my own muscle-use tendencies, which include a reoccurring limitation in a crucial large back muscle that we’ll talk about in a bit, and some low back tension related to the positioning of my hips in my standing posture. While none of these things are particularly debilitating, they can create soreness that leads to fatigue and they absolutely limit my resonance and breathing when I’m playing the flute if they go unchecked.
Even if you don’t experience noticeable symptoms that are hip-related (or perhaps you don’t realize that something you’re experiencing is originating in the hips), a crash course in good hip health and use can benefit all of us.
What muscles are we talking about when we discuss the hips?
The psoas is the heavy-hitter of hip muscles. Connected at the thoracic and lumbar spine and passing through the bone structure of the pelvis, the psoas connects to the leg at the femur, affecting rotation of the leg. In fact, the psoas is one of the muscles that generates movement in the legs when we walk.
Other muscles of and directly connected (in some cases crossing over or working in tandem) to the hips include the piriformis, gluteus minimus, medius, and maximus, and the iliacus, as well as the sartorius, tensor fasciae latae, and adductor muscles.
Muscles of the hips
What muscles in other parts of the body have crucial interactions with the hips?
Many muscles we would identify as belonging strictly to other parts of our body have an important interactive relationship with the hips and this includes the latissimus dorsi, thoracolumbar fascia, and the quadratus lumborum muscle (which is a deep interior abdominal muscle that is considered part of the back).
Quite crucially, our diaphragm also interacts directly with the psoas muscles.
Anatomy of the diaphragm
How do our muscles work with (or against) each other?
There are three major things to consider when it comes to the relationships that our muscles have with each other: where the connection points of the muscle are, what muscles are moving together, and the impact that fascia has on movement and interaction.
Fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds and holds our muscles, organs, nerve fibers, bones, and blood vessels in place. Fascia has nerves that make it sensitive, and it can become rigid or dehydrated, just like our muscles.
What can we do to encourage healthy hip movement and interactions?
A great starting point for efficiency and especially freedom of movement is posture. Our hip muscles are part of the pelvic structure, and establishing a natural relationship between the pelvis and spine will go a long way toward eliminating low back discomfort and allowing the hips to work as intended.
You can check this out for yourself by exploring what happens to your spine if you adjust the placement of the hips or pelvis.
Standing with your feet roughly hip width distance apart, stack your knees, hips, ribs, chest, and head over your heels. Shift your hips forward toward your toes and back behind your heels, noting the impact on your spine, breathing, legs, and low back muscles. Come back to a neutral posture and experiment with the placement of the pelvis. Think of your pelvis like a bowl and proceed to slowly tip the bowl forward, bring it level, and then tip it backward. Pay attention to what changes around your low back, spine, and with your breathing as you do this.
After exploring these extremes, you should find it easier to come to rest in a neutral standing position. This exploration can also be done seated to explore any differences between standing and sitting hip and pelvis placement and relationship to the spine.
Knowing what major muscle players connect in the same places can also be beneficial for establishing a healthy pattern of movement and use. For our purposes as musicians, there is one especially busy connection point that matters. Our quadratus lumborum, psoas (major and minor), and diaphragm all connect at the lumbar spine. As this large and important muscles come together, they can’t help but interact meaning that if you have limitations in one of them it will affect the others. If your quadratus lumborum muscle is tight and pulling, it will inhibit the movement of both your diaphragm and psoas impacting everything from breathing to walking.
We will find the most success addressing these deep interior relationships between muscles by employing a variety of tactics. Establishing a good breathing pattern (making sure that the entire rib cage is engaged) will help keep the diaphragm functioning fully. Regularly walking and stretching the muscles of the hips will ensure that the psoas stays long, hydrated, and oxygenated.
Fascia is another key to healthy muscle use and interaction. It is stimulated by regular stretching and activities like walking, but can be further encouraged through massage and self-myofascial release like rolling the muscles with appropriate tools.
The hips have even more impact as we travel up the back into the shoulders, but if you are experiencing feelings of stiffness in the low back, in your breathing, or in your legs, it’s worth exploring the relationships your hips have with other muscles in your body.