In my time as a fitness writer, tight hips have been the most common complaint I’ve faced from readers. So I recruited a flexibility expert to explain why this might be the case, and what people could do to combat it.

“I believe a lot of it comes from sitting,” Cody Mooney, director of stretching app Pliability tells me.” Any time we do something for a long period of time there will be impacts, and these can be positive or negative.”

Sitting at a desk, day after day, can reinforce “poor posture patterns” and hold your hip flexors in a shortened position, leading to tightness, Mooney says. This tightness can make it harder to access certain positions, particularly during sports and strength training exercises like squats. “Compensation happens, and usually when compensation happens you get injuries,” he adds.

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One way to counteract this is to strengthen the key muscles in and around the hips. Another is to stretch them. Consistent stretching does the opposite of sitting down all day, Mooney explains, elongating the muscles and “allowing your body to move as it should”.

If you want to give it a go and fight tight hips, Mooney says the three moves below are the best place to start.

How to do Cody Mooney’s stretching routine for tight hips

Hold the stretches above for two minutes each. For the couch stretch and twisted lizard, hold them for two minutes on each leg.

“Allow yourself to be passive, don’t push yourself into discomfort where you don’t breathe, you’re sweating, you’re tense [or] it hurts,” Mooney advises.

He says you can do these stretches daily. Over time, he also recommends increasing the amount of time you spend in each position, gradually climbing up to five minutes.

“I think if someone spent five minutes a day in couch stretch, then saddle, then sat in pigeon for three or four minutes a day, that consistency would provide massive benefits,” he adds.

Read more: 14 best exercise bikes for hitting your fitness goals at home

The couch stretch 

How to do it

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Benefits

“This is a wonderful stretch which targets the front of the leg and the hip flexor area,” says Mooney. “If you learn to loosen this area, it will benefit you in many ways.

“With pain, we often have to look up or downstream for the cause. People develop patella tendonitis [knee pain] if they have a lot of tightness in their quads, the muscles on the front of the thigh, as well as lower back pain.”

“Doing the couch stretch – loosening up the quads, hip flexors and piriformis [a muscle running from the lower spine to the top of the thighs] – will really help you loosen up the hips, and [ease] the nagging lower back that many people have.”

Read more: These are the 12 best men’s gym trainers you can buy, according to our expert tester

The saddle 

How to do it

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Benefits

“Saddle really hits the quads and hip flexors, which tighten up in that sitting position,” Mooney explains.

The hip flexors are in high demand in daily life too. These muscles’ primary function is bringing the knee towards the chest, meaning they play a role in walking, running, squatting and even standing.

“So much of that is hip flexor, so really you’re creating a tight muscle, leaving it tight, then never doing anything to counter that,” Mooney adds, prescribing the saddle stretch as a first step for remedying this.

Read more: 14 best gym shorts for men, tried and tested by a fitness writer

The pigeon pose 

How to do it

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Benefits

Given how frequently the hip flexor muscles are used on a daily basis, it pays to have them working smoothly. But, as Mooney says, “no lunch is free”, so you need to dedicate some time and effort to keeping them in good nick.

“I think the pigeon pose is great because it really hits the hip, glute and lower back area,” says Mooney. “When you can learn to release that, it can help people in multiple different ways.”

It can ease lower back and hip pain, Mooney says, as well as improving freedom of movement around the joint.

“By stretching, or elongating muscle groups [around the hips] and allowing joints to function properly, you might not take away all of the negatives of sitting at a desk for eight hours every day, but you’re at least being proactive in an approach to counter some of them and allowing your body to get back to its natural, proper position,” Mooney says.

Read more: A leading strength coach shares his three ‘essential’ kettlebell exercises for ‘fitness and longevity’

I’m late to the smartwatch game, but I’m obsessed with my TicWatch Atlas, which has all the bells and whistles I need to stay on top of my workouts. 

As a runner, my favorite feature is the built-in GPS, which allows you to track your runs, bike rides and hikes without the need to tote along a phone. I also love the heart rate monitor, which I use to stay in my target heart rate zones. If you’re new to the concept, following the American Heart Association’s guidelines is a good starting point.

In addition to offering multiple sports modes to track your workouts, including everything from swimming to yoga, the TicWatch Atlas syncs to your phone to make it easy to track a variety of health metrics. It provides a snapshot of your daily activity levels, sleep quality and even your current stress levels, by using heart rate variability. This is particularly nice during the holidays, when stress levels often spike. For instance, I may know I’m extra stressed, but seeing it reflected on the app is a good reminder to take a time out. Lately, I’ve been leveraging this information and opting to do a quick meditation session on ALO Moves to help keep me centered.

While I’m not particularly tech-savvy, this model is extremely user-friendly. The best part? It not only motivates me to stay active, but it gives me real-time data to reach my goals more effectively. If you lead an active lifestyle and love a good gadget, this smartwatch is a great option.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – Running is the preferred workout for many people.

Trainer Adam from Gainesville Health and Fitness tells us about the perfect form in this week’s Your Fitness.

RELATED: Gainesville Health and Fitness: Core workout with kettlebell

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