What muscles get stretched when doing the flat "figure four" hip stretch?

January 18, 2011 5:46 PM

What muscles get stretched when doing the flat "figure four" stretch? Lying flat on your back with one leg straight and one ankle resting on the other thigh crossing above the knee and lowering the knee down to the floor in a flat "figure four" pattern.

My doctor was testing my hip flexibility and my right hip was really tight.
To test it he has me lie flat on my back, cross my right leg over my left and rest my right ankle on my left thigh with my knee turned out to the right attempting to make it down to the table (like the #4 flat on the table).
It was really tight, but I have done it semi-obsessively (in bed) and I can make it down to the bed/floor now.

It has improved my back and hip problems and I want to know exactly what is being stretched by this motion.
Are the iliopsoas or Piriformis involved?

( I would have included a picture of this. All I could find were bent at the waist, not flat on the floor.)

posted by Studiogeek to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

I would guess that it's more piriformis than iliopsoas. One of my favorite yoga teachers used to have us get at our piriformis by lying on our backs, lowering one straight leg out to the side, then rotating the leg at the hip. In a quick try of your stretch, that seems to be the same muscle movement.

The reason he'd have us work on our piriformis was because it is so often related to sciatica - the muscle travels through the same small space in the hip bone as the nerves that cause sciatica, so when it's tight/shortened it's fatter and squeezes on those nerves. So if your back problems involve sciatica, that makes even more sense.

Fun fact: piriformis, iliopsoas, and quadratus erectus are the three main connections between the legs and trunk, and thus tend to be key in hip/back issues.
posted by ldthomps at 6:20 PM on January 18, 2011

Where are you feeling the stretch?
If I'm understanding your description properly & doing it myself, I feel the stretch in my adductors & iliopsoas.
Is is something like this, but with the foot of the flexed leg across the opposite leg?

posted by goshling at 7:20 PM on January 18, 2011

Sounds like a stretch for the short adductors (formatting is wacky, cut and paste to get full text):

The stretcher bends his right knee, places the sole of his right foot against the inside of his left knee, and lowers his right leg toward the table as far as it will go, keeping his left hip flat on the table. This lengthens the short adductors to their end range.
posted by yeloson at 9:54 PM on January 18, 2011

ack, there was meant to be link in my last comment.

Is it something like this?
posted by goshling at 2:02 AM on January 19, 2011

Sounds like a glute stretch to me. I love that one!
posted by phogirl at 4:32 AM on January 19, 2011

oh wait. maybe not, upon further reading. sorry.
posted by phogirl at 4:36 AM on January 19, 2011

This stretch works all your external hip rotators, not just piriformis (that's just the one that everyone knows) here's an image. If you are tight in your illiopsoas, adductors and hamstrings they will get a stretch as you are trying to get into the correct pose. Once you find this position easy to get to, you can slightly deepen the stretch and really target the rotators by tilting your tailbone toward the floor. To stretch the adductors more make sure your top knee is opened nice and wide. Pigeon is a good alternative stretch for the hips.
posted by purpletangerine at 7:42 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]