Ep 73: Hip Openers and Labral Tears: Why Deep Stretches Aren’t for Everyone

Some students need to be extremely cautious when it comes to poses like Pigeon, Fire Log, and even Butterfly. Excessive hip movement that's required in these poses can lead to labral tears, hip impingement, and even chronic pain. 

These poses primarily target the hip joints, which are in a position of flexion, external rotation, and abduction. And Pigen pose is the #1 culprit... and I'll explain why.

In this episode, I’m going to discuss hip openers and one common injury associated with them. Ever heard of a labral tear?

Referenced in this episode:

Ep 72: When to Refer Out: Recognizing the Limits of Your Scope

YouTube: Half Pigeon Pose: How to Avoid Pain & Injury

Transcript

Monica: 0:00

Some students really need to be cautious when it comes to poses like pigeon fire log, and even butterfly pose. The excessive movement required of the hip can lead to labral tears, hip impingement, and even chronic or persistent. Pain. These poses primarily target the hip joints, which are in a position of flexion, external rotation and abduction. In this episode, I'm going to discuss hip openers and an injury associated with them. Have you ever heard of a labral tear? Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers Podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you. If you are a yoga teacher, you're looking for support. You love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you. My life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned, my process for building my business and helpful ideas, tools, strategies and systems I use and you can use so that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you, whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you wanna dive deep and set yourself up for success. I am so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously, so expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now let's do this together. welcome back to the podcast. I'm Monica, and I'm so glad you are here. Today we are discussing a big topic in yoga, hip openers. Everyone wants hip openers. It seems first. What is a hip opener? Most teachers are taught that a hip opener is external rotation. Sure, that's one hip opener, but any movement you do with a hip flexion, extension, abduction. Abduction, internal and external rotation. These are all hip openers. It's just what are you opening the hip for is the question. If you're working up to wheel pose, you don't necessarily need to teach a lot of hip. External rotation. Instead, you teach more hip extension because that's what's required for wheel pose. Some students really need to be cautious when it comes to poses like pigeon fire log and even butterfly pose. The excessive movement required of the hip can lead to labral tears, hip impingement, and even persistent pain. These poses primarily target the hip joints, which are in a position of flexion, external rotation, and abduction. Imagine this in your mind. In hip flexion, the hips are bent, bringing the thighs closer to the torso. This stretches the glutes and deep external rotators of the hip, like the piriformis. Then there's hip ab abduction where the thighs move away from the midline of the body, engaging the TFL or the tensor fascia, Lata and the gluteus medias. And finally, there's hip. External rotation where the thigh bone or the femur rotates outward in the hip socket. This is where the deep hip rotators come into play. I'll break down the anatomy or the red flags that most teachers miss, and most importantly, what to do instead. So let's get into it. First, the cultural obsession with yoga is that it glorifies extreme external rotation. Like deep pigeon poses often seen as a sign of an advanced practice, but for many, it really is a fast track to injury. Have you ever heard of a labral tear? It's a common injury in students who practice yoga. So let's back up and talk anatomy really quickly. The labrum is a cartilage ring that stabilizes the hip socket. It absorbs. Shock when you walk and jump, and it helps to distribute weight and stress around the joint to help reduce joint wear and tear. Tears happen from repetitive pinching. That's an impingement. Overstretching overuse as well as degenerative conditions. Symptoms can include pain, instability, stiffness. Oh, and clicking and popping. I've mentioned before that clicking and popping sounds aren't always an issue, but if they are accompanied by pain, then they definitely need to be looked into. So who's at risk students with femoral acetabular impingement, which is abnormal hip bone shape where the femur bone and the acetabulum, that's the hip socket come too close with one another and either cause friction or pinch soft tissues that surround the joint. Also students with hypermobility, often their ligaments are too lax to protect the joint and students who are also athletes or dancers or play other sports commonly have preexisting wear and tear on the joint. I'm gonna say something really controversial here, but bear with me because I'll explain it. Pigeon pose is the number one offender. Okay, pigeon pose combines deep hip flexion, external rotation, and abduction, the perfect storm for an anterior hip pinch. Oftentimes the femur is jammed into the socket and posterior ligament strain as a student is constantly overstretching the joint capsule, trying to get deeper into the stretch. It is the number one offender because 98% of Vinyasa classes end with half pigeon in the sequence. Why? I don't know. It's not necessary, but I was taught to end my classes with a juicy half pigeon. We can teach different poses that. Open the hips if that's what you're looking for, like a supine figure for, my favorite way to practice it is without hands, so that students don't force themselves into a deeper stretch than necessary. Here's some red flags in class for you to be mindful of. Number one. Do you notice that your students are wincing or shifting their weight to one side? Number two, can your students hear clicking or popping in the hip? Again, this is not always harmful, but it's also not always harmless. And number three, do your students experience any pain in the front of the hip or in the groin? It could be an indicator of a labrum or a SOAs issue. Ask yourself these questions. Their answers can inform your teaching and your sequencing a lot. I have a student who does not like half pigeon, and they are a regular student, so I wanted to think of my sequencing differently. And now I rarely teach half pigeon. I do, but not too often. How did I change up my sequencing? That's a great question. And here are some alternatives. I incorporate mobility, joint control, joint movement, and joint strengthening. I teach a lot of movements that don't. Technically have a yoga pose name instead. They're the movements. I need to prepare students' bodies for what we're doing in that class. I teach active mobility over passive stretching a lot. Now, I don't cut out passive stretching completely, But I want students to connect to their bodies in a different way outside of stretching as a replacement for pigeon, I might also teach a 90 90 hip stretch. This is less extreme on the hip of the back leg because the knee is bent, and it also helps to keep the femur centered and not jammed into the hip socket. As a replacement for fire log, which is also called Double Pigeon, unstack the Shins, and just cross them. I add mobility by leaning back on the hands and teaching students to lift their leg and control the movement of it. if you can imagine that, you can see how this doesn't have a yoga pose name, but it's a movement that I can teach that helps students become more aware of their joint movement and control. I know clamshells get a bad rap, but I still love to teach them. I teach a lot of standing hip rotations or cars, if you're familiar with FRCA lot, again, they're controlled rotations just in a different orientation with an added balance challenge as well. I always suggest that students take strength and resistance classes outside of yoga. In those classes, they will likely do banded lateral walks with resistance bands, and these are excellent for strengthening the hips, which yoga students need. If your students love pigeon and want to continue practicing it, prop it up, Sit on a block. You can keep the heel underneath the hip and not take your shin diagonal across the mat. You could also limit the amount of breaths you keep students here to prohibit students from sinking in deep into the stretch. What should you do? When you think you need to refer out, if you notice that a student has pain that lingers more than 48 hours after a practice, that's probably a good time to see someone clicking. Locking sensations during daily activities like walking or limited range of motion, not just tightness. I have an entire podcast episode dedicated to referring out. It is episode number 72, when to refer out, recognizing the limits of your scope, and I'll link it below for you. Let me end by reiterating that hip. Openers aren't inherently evil, but they're overly practiced. As teachers, we can help our students by resisting the urge to equate depth with progress. True mobility is about strength control. And respecting bony anatomy. Next time you teach deep hip openers such as pigeon, double pigeon, and butterfly, ask yourself if it's necessary or if you're just teaching it, because you always have. If you are a visual learner, I have a treat for you. I am a total visual learner as well, so I recorded a YouTube video on understanding pigeon pose Including the movement of the knee joint, and I've added an additional variation for pigeon pose that I often teach in class. This additional variation eliminates gravity and body weight from the force and loads placed on the hips and knee joint. I'll link that YouTube video in the show notes below. I love half pigeon pose because it can be a powerful hip opener, but it's also a pose that begs respect for the body's limits By having a deeper understanding of the anatomy and biomechanics of hip openers, we can practice and teach them in a way that honors our students unique bodies and needs. remember, yoga is never about achieving a perfect shape. It's about finding balance, ease, and connection in the practice. When you have a deep understanding of anatomy, biomechanics, and the effects, yoga as and I have on the body, you help your students understand that the yoga practice is not a workout, but a tool to help them look inside themselves, to listen to themselves, and to realize that their bodies might benefit from slight adjustments in the alignment of their poses in order to suit their own bodies. Needs. It's so important for us to have this conversation so that you remember that there are so many opportunities for you in the teaching world. You know that my goal is for you to love the yoga teaching life. I've added a link in the show notes for you to send me a quick text message about your thoughts on this episode or any other, I won't know your phone number. It is just a neat addition to the platform that I use that allows for this new and really. Easy way for you to communicate with me. Once you click on it, it will take you to your messages, but don't delete the code. That's how your message will get to me, and I would love to know your thoughts. Subscribe to the podcast so you're always in the know when a new episode drops, and share it with another yoga teacher who you think would love to be in on these conversations. Thank you for helping to spread the word about. This podcast if you've been taking notes in your journal as you listen to these episodes, I'm so glad you are, and I'd love to hear about that too. Download the ebook sequencing for different injuries. The link is in the show notes below. I promise you it will help you form a foundation for teaching students with injuries and aging. Bodies. The information will also help you understand how to accommodate students of different accessibilities, and it'll be a great resource for you to return to again and again. When you download the ebook, you'll be joining my newsletter. That's just for yoga teachers. I've got more exciting teachings coming soon, so I wanna tell you all about them. The link is in the show notes below, and I would love for you to join it so we can always stay connected. Alright, that's it for now. Bye.