Hip Flexor Stretch - Thomas Test Stretch

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If you feel pain, stop.

Video Transcription:
Welcome back to Foundation Physical Therapy’s YouTube channel today we’re going to go over a great stretch to stretch out hip flexors, quads or at least one of the quads going down the front of the leg and it also really helps out with your IT-band. It’s called a modified Thomas test. It’s really more of an assessment but its also a great stretch. So to do it is very simple. What you’re going to do is this would be the head of your bed at home, this would be the foot of your bed at home. You’re going to sit side saddle on the edge of your bed and then what you’re going to do is get close enough so that, you’re going to lay back so get close enough so that the edge that the back of your knees aren’t hitting the side of your bed when you do. And what you’re going to do is just simply lay back here and you’re going to go until you feel your lower back get flat on your bed. You shouldn’t be arching your back when you do this. Then what you do is simply hold one leg up so your back remains flat and then drop this other leg down gently. Now if your hip flexors are really tight what can happen is your leg will kind of stay up in this position. Ideally you want the back of this leg to be parallel to the surface kind of like this right. The other thing you’re going to do is you’re not going to hold this leg out straight like this you’re going to let it hang down. If you find that it hangs out really straight like this what you can do is add a little bit of knee bend to this and that’ll engage all of this stretch in here. Another thing to be mindful of is if this leg is out to the side that can be the IT-Band being very tight so you want to focus on bringing that back up, letting it kind of drop straight down. Again you reach kind of for the floor a little bit. You’ll feel your glutes engage and you add a little bend in the knee and that should trigger all of this stretch. At no point should you feel any kind of back pain. It should really just feel like a comfortable stretch here. Now the other things you can do if its really tight is just hang out here for 2 to 3 minutes. Just let it hang, don’t hug this knee so far up that it pinches here. Just let this hang down. Then once you get to the point that you’ve been doing that for a week or two and it seems like its hanging a little bit better then you can add the movement of reaching for the floor and then adding a little knee bend without letting your back arch. Really great stretch as just a maintenance activity after exercise if you find that you’re chronically tight in your hips. Also a great activity for people that sit in a chair all day. If your job forces you to be a computer which many people do, it’s a good way to just kind of relax and let your hips open up. As a point of, or just a separate little tip what you can do if the edge of your bed really tends to kind of cave down where you can’t seem to get a good shelf on it or a good edge on it, what you can do is take a piece of wood or a large book or even a large cutting board at home and slide that underneath your comforter and put that pretty close to the edge. What that will do is it’ll kind of act like a snow shoe to distribute your weight and you’ll maintain a nice edge. So that’s your Thomas test. It’ll really help out with rectus femoris, your IT-band, to some extent your Sartorius all the muscles that kind of live in the front of the thigh. Fantastic way to stretch. Again we remind you that movement is a gift and I hope that this helps you enjoy it.