Lionel Pannunzio PT / SCS
- Nov 28, 2018
- 2 min read

Hip Tightness In Soccer Players. Try These 2 Mobility Drills | Weston | Florida

Updated: Feb 16, 2019

Playing soccer puts a high demand on your hip flexors and they usually become very tight, especially after games or heavy workouts. When shortened, they do not allow the leg to fully extend backwards, a very important requirement for sprinting or kicking. Tightness of hip flexors is a very common condition and it is related to many other conditions like Low back pain, Groin pain, ITB syndrome.

The following 2 exercises will help you in loosening the hip flexor complex ( IllioPsoas and Rectus femoris maily ) :

Note: these exercises are intended only for tight muscles, like for warm up or after games. Do not try these if you have pulled or strained your hip flexors

In this first video you’ll see a simple hip flexor stretch that opens the front of the hip and allows for better mobility of the hip. Be sure you raise your arms and to contract the same side glute to move the pelvis in a posterior tilt and intensify the mobility work at the hip flexor specifically

In the second video, we incorporate the two most important hip flexors ( IllioPsoas and Rectus femoris ) and we make them move together. Also this movement is very specific for kicking in soccer players. Be sure you bring Heel to Buttocks first and then without loosing that position, create a backwards movement in the knee to bring the hip in extension and lengthen the hip flexors.

Static vs Dynamic Stretch

By now you understand we don’t like passive stretch and we are more in favor of dynamic stretch where one muscle group activates to “stretch ( we like more the word mobilize ) the opposite muscle group

What Soccer injuries are related to tight hip flexors?

Many hip and low back problems arise from the fact that players don’t have enough hip extension mobility due to tight hip flexors.

Lack of hip extension in soccer is very dangerous especially in the youth players where this deficit in extending the hip will be compensated by lumbar extension. All this excessive lumbar extension in a immature skeleton could potentially create Low back pain or even worse spondylolysis of the vertebrates ( par articularis fracture ).

The second most common injury associated to tight hip flexors is a Hip Flexor strain where the muscle is so tight and stiff that it will get injured by kicking or sprinting