Hip Mobility Flow Day 2: 42-Min Stretching Routine for BJJ

If it feels best to just squat down here and feel the stretch, take three deep breaths. Nice, stand up and place your right ankle on your left knee, so single leg chair. Squat down, halfway down, so it's a chair pose balancing on the left foot. The more you sit down the more intense it's gonna be for your right hip.

You can use a door or lean to the wall if it's difficult to keep the balance but why not practice the balance at the same time as you're stretching your hip? Why not? One more breath. And switching sides.

Left ankle, right leg. Squat down as much as you can, keeping the balance, stretch your arms out to the side if you want more balance. Close your eyes if your balance is perfect. One more breath.

And stand up, we're ready to flow. Top of your mat or wherever you are. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, fold.

Inhale, stretch. Step the right foot far back. Place the back knee down, twist the foot out and lean over to the side so it's just like a sloppy, sloppy lizard. So you're twisting your spine looking to your back foot and your right hip, the bottom hip, is pushing down so you can feel it in your right waist.

Hands down, step back to dog. Inhale in dog. Exhale, roll forward. Inhale, plank.

Exhale, down. Inhale, cobra. Exhale, down dog. Stretch the right leg up.

Lift your right leg and bend it, point the toes and open, open, open. You can even pump the right knee high and then on your toes, roll the knee forward to your face. Step the right foot forward. Same pose, second side.

So left knee down, flatten your foot and sloppy twist, sloppy lizard. Everything is down. You can even let your shoulder come up and really stretch your left side. Look back to your left foot.

Smooth breathing. Hands down, step forward. Inhale, stretch halfway up. Exhale, fold.

Inhale all the way up. Look up. Exhale, hands down. Another round.

Inhale, up. Exhale, down. Inhale, stretch halfway. Step the left foot far back again.

This time, interlace your fingers and press down through your knee into your ankle and lower the hips. So you should feel it intensely, immensely on the front side of your left hip. So stretch the left heel back and push the right knee forward and lower your hips. No tension in the face or neck.

Step back to dog. Inhale in dog. Exhale, plank. Inhale, plank.

Exhale, down. Inhale, back down. Exhale, dog. Stretch the left leg up and out behind you.

Bend and open and pump the left knee up. If you're not feeling it, you have to go for higher knee and higher intensity. On your toes, roll the knee to your face on the exhale. Inhale, left foot forward.

Same thing here. Interlace the fingers through your knee into your ankle. Push the right heel back, lower your hips. Even deeper, straighten the back leg more.

Inhale, down. Exhale, down. Inhale, back down. Exhale, down.

Hands down, step forward. Inhale, halfway up. Exhale, down. Bend the knees.

Sit down in a squat chair, arms up and lift your butt to knee height. So low chair, take three breaths. Just engage your legs. One more breath.

Trying to... That's it. Sit down. Now cross your ankles and pull your feet into your butt and try squeezing the knees close to your armpits.

So sit here and squeeze. Hold the balance and be as tight as possible. Keep the feet rolled back. And then roll up.

One more time, roll back. Roll back. And roll up. Now place the feet down.

If you can keep your hands behind you and you can lift up and like suck your legs back, you can do that. If it's difficult, you just place the hands forward a little bit and jump back to low push up. From the low push up, inhale, up dog or cobra. Exhale, down dog.

Lift the right leg as high as you can. Bend the knee, point the feet and lift the right knee up. Try leaning back so you almost topple backwards. You should be able to see your right foot under your left armpit.

Roll the knee forward, foot between the hands. Warrior two. And this warrior two, point the back foot back. Not like we usually do.

And then try squeezing the heels towards each other and sink as low as possible. So it should feel quite intense on your inner thighs. Your upper body should feel like this, even though you're doing this. So lower shoulders, engage your arms and don't forget to breathe.

Breathe. Even deeper. Left hand down, side plank in the arms and then step your right foot to your belly. So it's a side plank with a push through your right foot.

So side plank with a hip opener. Two more breaths. Shoulders down the back, engage your left arm. Lift your right arm, spread the fingers on the right hand.

No sloppy hands. Step back to plank, inhale, exhale, push up. Inhale, back bend, push your chest forward. Exhale, back.

Left leg up, bend the knee open as much as possible. You should be able to see your left foot under your right armpit. There is a big bow through your left side. Roll the knee to face.

Left foot between the hands, warrior two with an angled back foot. So instead of pointing the foot forward, point the foot back and lower deep. Your left knee should point straight forward, engage the upper body, spread the fingers and squeeze the heels together and go lower. Your torso is above your hips, not in front.

One more. Right hand down, side plank with a push through the left foot. Left arm up, don't let your hips droop. Lift the hips by pushing through the left foot, engaging and stretching your left hip.

Shoulders back, chest up and forward. And breathe. Shoulders back, chest up and forward. And breathe.

Plank, inhale, low push up, exhale. Up dog or cobra, inhale. Exhale, down dog. Bend the knees, look forward, land in a squat.

Take three breaths in a squat, push your knees away from each other. Try to go lower. Sit down on your butt, cross the opposite leg forward to switch the legs. Now really squeeze the knees into your armpits, pull everything together, suck it in.

Hold the balance and find it if you lose it. Roll back and roll up, roll back and roll up. Try this time to lift yourself off the ground and maybe swing back. Back bend, inhale, exhale, down dog.

Right leg up, inhale, exhale, knee to nose, foot between the hands. Come up to crescent pose, arms up, take three breaths here. Lift your chest as high as possible, lower the hips as low as possible. Two more breaths.

Stretch both legs, turn to the left, feet parallel, inhale, lift, exhale, fold, stop with the hands on the knees or slide down as deep as possible. This pose is easy if you stay here for long enough because gravity will take care of the job. You can just chill out here. There is always the possibility to bend the knees to go deeper.

I prefer bending the knees first and then stretch instead of starting with a bent back. But you already know this. If not, you know it now. Breathe deeply even if it's intense.

Now walk the hands forward again so we're not in a straight line. Place the back knee down, stretch your right arm back so the opposite, the right is grabbing the left. Grab somewhere on your foot. If you can't reach, use a belt.

Stay here for five, six breaths. Hips as low as possible, pull the foot towards the butt. Now we're going to do the same thing as before. Slowly release, step back to plank, inhale, low push up, exhale, inhale, up dog, exhale, down dog.

Left leg up, inhale, exhale, knee to face. Foot between the hands, crescent pose. Interlace the fingers and push up while you're lowering down. So hips down, hands up, shoulders up, chest up, everything up except the hips.

They go down, two more breaths. Engage the arms, squeeze them together. Even lower. And lift all the way up and turn to the right.

This time interlace your fingers behind your back. If this is impossible, just grab a belt, inhale, up, exhale, fold. So if the hands can't go together, use a belt and go as low as possible. This time more dynamic.

Bend one knee, maybe your head touches the ground, maybe not. Just go from side to side without placing your hands in the ground. This kind of stretching where you're stretching with the weight bearing, weight bearing stretching is completely different from relaxed stretching, passive stretching. If you're stiff and if you're athletic, I prefer this style of stretching for beginners if you're new to stretching.

Because you're used to working, you know how working feels, but this kind of work really makes you, I don't have the right words for it, but I love this for beginners. And it's equally good if you're advanced. One more time from side to side. Try to lower your head as low as possible while you breathe.

Next time the left knee is bent, place the hands down. Low lunge first. And then reach back with your left hand, grab your foot or your pants or whatever you can grab. And lower the hips.

The hips want to stay up but push them down. Lean back, left shoulder rolls back so the chest opens. Pull the heel towards your butt, but if your face starts to cringe, relax the face, maybe even relax the foot. Nice long even breaths.

Let go of the foot, plank inhale, low push up exhale. Up dog or cobra inhale, exhale down dog. Bend your knees, look forward, lift your legs up. Up dog or cobra inhale, exhale down dog.

Bend your knees, look forward, jump forward to a squat again. Slowly walk your hands forward and try to lower your butt so that you can quietly sit down on the ground. Move to the side and split the legs. And today we're going to do it properly.

Your pubic bone and your navel, try to get them in line. So there is a straight line from your pubic bone, your hips to your belly. And then line up your sternum, your chest bone, on line with these two. So there is no sagging, the belly is not behind.

The line that you try to create a straight line on the front side. And if you lift your chest enough, you won't be able to see your belly and your lower body. This is good, try to stay here, hands on knees. So there is a lot of engagement in the backside of the body.

But the breath is deep. Your mind is calm. Nice and steady breaths. Don't think, just slide to the right.

And stop before you reach the stop. Take three breaths. Slide a bit more, but don't lose this line between your pubic bone, your navel and your chest. Don't collapse and fold forward, just stretch sideways.

Focus on the hips, but if you want to reach your arms up and over. Or you can keep pushing the thigh down with your left hand. Three more breaths. Back to center, take three breaths in center.

Without thinking about it, keep the line on the front and slide to the left. Stop before you have to stop. Inhale and exhale. Keep the engagement of the back body.

Perhaps slide deeper without folding forward. Slide back to center. Let's try a very advanced pose, but in a friendly kind of way. Cross-legged might be difficult for some of us, but I like putting a pillow right under the crossing of my ankles.

So I can sit like this. That's tip number one. Tip number two is to sit with lower back to the wall. Maybe put a block or something behind you so that you get supported in the sacrum and lower back.

But what we're going to do now is a double pigeon. So this is the single pigeon. We're going to do the double pigeon with both legs at the same time. It's not uncommon, it's actually very common.

Almost everybody starts with the ankle on the... So it's like a triangle, but you put the ankle on the thigh and everybody's going to more or less start out here. With one knee up and the other knee even higher. But we will eventually reach a place where the knees are stacked on top of each other.

Or the calves are stacked on top of each other. But we're going to start from here. And it's absolutely not allowed to grunt here or make this a arduous time. So even if it hurts like hell, just sit here.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Complete inhalations. Complete exhalations.

Two more. Inhale. Inhale. Now place your hands behind you and just jiggle the knees up and down.

And now lean to the left so that your bottom knee touches the floor. So you're sitting with one hip up. And then just try pressing your knee down from sideways like this. If you feel pain on the outside of the knee, then it's too much.

If not, go for it. For me it's super intense in the hip joint. But we're not trying to change the structure of the hip joint. We're just trying to stretch our range of motion to the limit and see where the limit is.

Try coming back to center again with both hips down. Jiggle your knees again. And now without thinking about it, just lean forward slightly. Three.

Two. One. Sit back. Circles with the feet.

Just like BJJ warm up. And the second side is usually much worse. So be patient. So other ankle to other knee.

Keep the line between the pubic bone, the navel and the sternum. So sit tall. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Exhale. Inhale.

Exhale, relax. Inhale. Exhale. Two more.

Inhale. Lean back and jiggle. Up and down. Lean to the right so that your bottom leg touches the floor.

Now push your knee down. Or not the knee actually, more the femur bone. Try to push your thigh down so that you feel it in the hip joint. Or rather the hip joint area.

Somewhere deep inside there on the left. Push the thigh down without hurting your knee. If I would have an ACL injury here, I would instead grab my knee and try to pull the knee inside. It's almost the same.

If you're super flexible, you can do it. If you're super flexible, make sure you flex the left foot. And try stretching the place where you're not as flexible. Because nobody is flexible in every direction.

Come back to center. Jiggle, jiggle. And without overthinking it, don't analyze it. Just lean forward and let your hips stretch.

Three. Two. One. And release.

Reverse table top, feet down, hips up. Engage the back. Five breaths here. And release.

Lay down on your back. Let's do the cow face. I'm going to show the cow face first. This is the cow face pose where we stack the knees on top of each other.

But we're going to do a nicer variation where we lay down on our backs. Stack the knees on top of each other. Now the tricky part is where to grab. The first point of attack would be grabbing the knees.

But that's usually not much sensation. You could grab your ankles or your feet like you're doing a figure four foot look on yourself. Sometimes it works to grab the outside of the feet. But what we want is to pull the feet inside so that we get a different kind of stretch in the thighs and outer hips.

Without actually hurting the knees. You just have to experiment until you find your angle. Try rolling the butt down to the floor. If you squeeze the heels in towards the butt, it might be more intense or less intense.

We can label this pose a it depends pose. Where it stretches and the benefits completely depends on your angles and your hips. Relax your face. Stay here for five.

Four. Three. Two. One.

And let's go stretch your legs up and jiggle jiggle. Stack the opposite knee on top. Same thing. So this is cow face on our backs.

Sleeping cow face. Something I never talked about is how to do the Something I never talked about is if you're new and you don't really have a place to practice, but you happen to have a bathtub in your apartment or house, fill that bathtub with hot water, lay down in it and do your stretching, do your yoga in the bathtub. It's amazing how much more flexible we become when the whole body is warm. Less chance of injury, easier to experiment and you can use the walls of the bathtub to your advantage.

Two more breaths. Happy baby pose. Grab your ankles or feet, pull the knees down. Sacrum down.

So your butt down. Try arching your back and pull the feet towards the knees or just keep pushing the knees away from each other. Five. Four.

Three. Two. One. Now spread the feet, stretch your legs away from each other.

Five. Four. Three. Two.

One. Feet together, interlace your fingers. Let the feet stretch the arms and push the knees apart. Shoulders and inner thighs.

One more. Keep the feet together, place them down in the ground. Place both hands on your belly. Let's take ten quick in and exhales like this.

Five more. Five more. Inhale. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Inhale and exhale. Keep the feet where they are, stretch your arms overhead.

Relax your knees. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out.

Exhale and keep the breath out. Exhale and keep the breath out. Inhale. knees together.

Sit back up. Cross your legs and just try sitting like this and see how it feels. We didn't do much, but we did enough to work all sides of the hips. And this is day number two of the hip week and eventually we're going to have five days of a mix between super intense and strengthening hip exercises, calm, easy, nice stretches and everything in between.

So this will be the ultimate hip week. You already did Monday. This was Tuesday. Three more to go, but until you wait for the next three ones, keep practicing these.

You can practice them every day if you want and your jiu-jitsu will explode when your hips loosen up. Thank you guys for watching. I see you in the next video or see you on the mat. By the way, I'm going to London the 15th to 29th of January.

So if you're in London, see you there.