Transcription
The squat has been proven effective to regain the natural mobility of your lower body, but there's an overlooked squat counterpart that pairs perfectly. Shifting the focus from the ankles to the hips and the inner thighs, and if done correctly, it can be a potent catalyst in perfecting the squat, as well as bulletproofing the hips, knees, and ankles for any athletic endeavor.
For most of us, as we age, the inner thigh musculature becomes tight, and the path to opening them isn't so clear. I've spent hours doing adductor stretches that really didn't seem to have any benefit, but one has the horse stance. It's simply a wide stance squat performed with an upright torso, ideally with the hip crease around knee height. And just like sitting in a deep squat, sitting in this position will bring huge mobility benefits.
But the horse stance will also bring strength and endurance. Unlike the deep squat, which you can eventually relax into, the horse stance is an extremely active position, requiring strength and grit. These strength requirements are essential for making long-lasting changes in your hip mobility. You can stretch inner thighs a ton, but being able to support your body weight in a stretched position will give you the most potent adaptations. And if done correctly, the horse stance will make your deep squat feel way more comfortable.
The position originated in eastern martial arts and has been used to develop power, flexibility, and discipline for centuries. But if you look at most ready positions in sports, you see horse stance-like positions everywhere. You've probably done it yourself playing defense in basketball or a volleyball return stance. But you've probably stopped those sports as well, and if you don't use it, you lose it. And if you look at most people's exercise regimen, it doesn't include any wide stance movements.
We're going to show you the optimal way to do the horse stance to enhance your hip mobility, and we'll give you a quick guide to follow for making optimal gains. There's multiple ways to do a horse stance, but we're going to show you the way that we prefer to focus on hip mobility. So, one thing that's important is that we're able to track the width of our stance, because if I take a more narrow stance and then the next time I take a wider stance, we're going to get inconsistent results. We can track this by taking a five-step horse stance. We find this to be the best for most people.
You start with your feet together. We initiate with heels out, that's one. Toes out, two. Heels out, three. Toes out, four. Now, this last step, the fifth step, is just going to put us in a feet forward position. Your first task is to drop your hips as low as you can go. Naturally, you're going to hinge at the hips, they're going to go back, and your chest is going to go down. Here's where the real work starts. You want to try to push your hips forward and raise your torso. This may mean that you need to raise your hips up a bit higher, and that's okay.
The horse stance is always going to be a battle between dropping the hips low by opening the hips rather than hinging the torso forward. Now, this is going to be very challenging, but the ultimate goal is to drop those hips down until they get to knee height, and you can possibly set a stick on your thighs to know that you're at parallel. When starting out, reach your arms forward to give you a counterbalance. Over time, you can start to bring that into your body to challenge your hips even more.
Now, we want to keep those feet mostly straight, but in the beginning, if you're turned out a bit, that's completely fine. And we want the knees to track over the toes. Now, horse stance is one where if the knees are in a bit, that is okay, especially at wider positions. But the more you can get your feet forward, the more that it balances the force between internal and external rotation of the hip.
Let's talk more about those hips. If you've ever wanted to put more work into your mobility but you haven't known where to start, we got you. We're launching Master Mobility, which combines basic mobility positions like the squat and hang with more potent stretching like the horse stance and pipe. This program is focused on gradually opening up the whole body, starting with the basics and moving into more complex stretches. It's 12 weeks of good loving for the body. If you want to commit to becoming more flexible this year, you can take advantage of our pre-sale discounted price for the next few days. First link in the description.
The horse stance puts you in an open hip position, stretching the inner thighs. But because you're supporting yourself, your inner thighs are taking the load of your whole body while stretched. This strengthens and builds resilience in all the muscles of the hip joint, as well, making it have high carryover to athletic or everyday movements. Your hips can rotate inward and outward. The magic of the horse stance is you're forced to have balanced strength of internal and external rotation of the femur. Often times, we see poor hip internal rotation correlated with pinching in the hip and limited hip mobility. And our beloved deep squat requires tons of internal rotation. Because hip internal rotation can be lost to our sitting in chairs, working on it independently will help you feel more comfortable in your horse stance.
We recommend using the 90/90 position as a warm-up. Sit down on the ground and place one leg in front and one leg behind. For some people, this will immediately feel uncomfortable. Just sitting here can bring big benefits, and you can place a pillow under your front hip if you need to. Now, work on getting the back hip closer to the ground. This is where the internal rotation happens. When you feel comfortable, try raising the hips up into extension. Now, lower back down under control, driving the back knee and foot into the ground. Working this movement gradually will help you get more connected to your hip internal rotation. And some basic groin stretching right before you do horse stance can go a long way. We really like the straddle good morning. Simply take the feet out nice and wide and do some hip hinging.
The horse stance can be used in many different ways. Holds are most commonly used for developing flexibility gains. A good way to program this is doing 3 to 5 isometric holds, 1 to 2 times per week. Start with a position that you can hold for 30 seconds and work up to being able to do 1 minute at a time. Once 1 minute becomes attainable, you're ready to progress the position by going lower, getting the torso more vertical, or turning the feet straighter, and then starting again back at 30 seconds.
But horse stance squats are another great option. Horse stance squats can be very effective because you can usually go a bit deeper if you don't have to hold the position. So this can help you get more acquainted with a deeper horse stance. Do a few sets of 8 to 10 reps, and you can even add in a bit of weight to help you get deeper.
Because the horse stance is so powerful for the hips, sometimes its other benefits are overlooked. It can also have positive influences on the knees and ankles. From years of wearing soft shoes with elevated heels, our feet and ankles have become stiff and weak. Sitting in a deep squat works your dorsiflexion flexibility. The horse stance will retrain your feet and ankles to actually become more strong and resilient.
Notice how if I turn my feet out in the horse stance, my arches collapse, and this is what most people's feet look like in a deep squat. It's a relaxed position, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with it. But now look at what happens when the feet are turned straight. It lifts the arch and gets the Achilles upright. Collapsing the arch will give you more range of motion, but it's a far less stable position, and your potential to generate power in things like running or jumping are greatly diminished. So practicing the horse stance can have a direct carryover to any activity where you need a strong connection to the ground, so almost everything.
And when your arches collapse, it directly affects the knees. One thing we don't think about often is our knees can actually rotate. Your lower leg can rotate externally and internally. Most of us, again, due to poor hip and ankle function, lose the ability to internally rotate the knee, which is essential for knee health. Think about the cardinal sin: the valgus knee, or when the knee caves inwards. This is your body collapsing into external rotation, and we know too much loading here can wreak havoc on your knees. The horse stance forces us to reclaim internal rotation of the knee by turning the feet straight. And if deep knee bending hurts, training this can actually restore function of the knee in a pain-free way.
So, I'm curious to hear what mobility goals do you have for yourself this year. Leave us a comment below. And if you want a full-body flexibility program to follow, make sure to check out Master Mobility. First link in the description. We'll see y'all in the next video.