5 Best Glute Stretch Exercises For Amazing Results
Glute Stretch Exercises- Glutes or the gluteal muscles are the groups of muscles located in the hips, butt, and thighs area. These muscles are extremely important for the flexibility and movement of the lower body. Moreover, glutes also help in improving your body posture and strength for athletic activities like running, jumping, etc. Thus, you need to keep these muscles stretched and flexible always. If these muscles become rigid due to a sedentary lifestyle like prolonged sitting, it can hinder your body’s range of movement. Consequently, you might not be able to perform certain weight-bearing activities and exercises that involved body stretching.
You might be surprised by the fact that most of us focus on the flexibility of all other muscles, except glutes. Moreover, we don’t even realize that our body’s range of movement is being held back due to rigid glutes. But you don’t have to worry as we have created the list of 5 best glute stretch exercises for you. These exercises will help in reducing the pain and rigidness of the gluteal muscles.
Most effective glute stretch exercises
Before beginning these exercises, you need to warm up your body muscles. For warming up, you can always do jogging, lunges, jumping jacks, and brisk walking, etc.
Pigeon pose – Pigeon pose is one of the most effective exercises for stretching your gluteal muscles and hip flexors. This pose is also known as the Eka Pada Rajakapotasana in yoga. Apart from stretching these muscles, this pose helps in improving digestion by stimulating the abdominal organs.
To do the pigeon pose, you need to get down on all fours i.e. your hands and knees. After that, you need to extend your right knee towards your right hand. Next, extend your lower right leg towards your left knee and stretch it, without causing any discomfort. Then, you need to extend your left leg backward, as straight as possible. Make sure that your toes of your rear leg are pointed. Hold this position for 20-30 seconds and repeat these steps by switching legs.
Cross-legged glute stretch – Cross-legged glute stretch is another amazing exercise to stretch and loosen your glutes. This exercise might seem simple, but it requires a lot of effort and energy. This exercise also helps in reducing the excess belly fat and improving the metabolism greatly.
To do the cross-legged glute stretch, you need to sit down on the floor and cross your legs. It means that you need to cross your left leg over the right one, to touch the right thigh with the left foot. Similarly, your right leg will be crossed under the left leg, to touch the left thigh with the right foot. After that, you need to slowly bend forward with straight extended arms. Hold the position for 20-30 seconds and repeat these steps 2-3 times.
Lying figure-four glute stretch – The lying figure-four glute stretch is an amazing exercise for stretching, toning, and strengthening various body muscles. The key target areas of this exercise include glutes and hips. Moreover, this workout helps in toning the core area as well. There are many variations of figure-four stretch like standing stretch, seated stretch, and lying stretch. The steps are almost similar for all the variations, only the position changes.