Yoga for Hip Mobility: 3 Pigeon Pose Alternatives

Do you love or hate Pigeon pose? Is the pose good for your hips and knees or bad for them? Pigeon is one of those tricky poses that either feels really good in your body or it creates aches and pain. Pigeon tends to be practiced as a passive stretch that's held for a long time, which can be part of the reason why it doesn't feel good in some people's hips, lower back or knees.
Whether you enjoy the pose or not, this lesson is going to go through some helpful active stretches that get right into the same places you're trying to stretch in the traditional Pigeon pose. This means that if do these active stretches BEFORE you do the passive version of the pose, it can kick on your muscles and nervous system and help keep you feeling good in the pose.
Or if you never want to do Pigeon again but want to still get a similar stretch in your hips while improving your hip mobility, then these three Pigeon alternatives are what you've been waiting for.
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[@profbookwurm]

AMAZING. Thank you.

[@chellep7463]

Fabulous!

[@nicole_adrian]

Whohoooo 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 like it 🫶🧘🏻‍♀️

[@HeartBonesYogaAnatomyMobility]

Oh good! Gives some helpful options for sure.

[@susanneharris8241]

This is such good work! I love all the subtlety you bring to it. Thank you!

[@HeartBonesYogaAnatomyMobility]

You're so welcome! So much fun stuff to explore with this all :)

[@paulinemarion4636]

Wow this made my impinged hips feel so good in such a short time ! ❤️

[@leemcgarry8334]

Thanks so much for this. I teach an older class and I’ve found your videos so useful as a lot of the typical/common poses are just not accessible to many of my students.

[@HeartBonesYogaAnatomyMobility]

I'm so glad you've found this approach helpful. I agree, many poses aren't accessible to a lot of people so I'm grateful you've been getting inspiration and ideas for your teaching!

[@debradipiazza844]

Is there a pigeon for hip arthritis? Supine Figure four gives my arthritic left hip the same agita that pigeon gives it. I’ve been using a kind of prone half frog, feels better, but very passive.

[@LaLumina]

Wonderful!💛was wondering what kind of mic you are using..it sounds great! Thank you💛

[@johnmachinmegavegan8378]

At 66, I now experience intermittent sacro-iliac joint (SIJ) stiffness (bordering on locking), occasionally spreading to full lower-back pain. The condition generally lasts a day or so, and can affect either SIJ separately. I wonder if you're aware of any exercise which might cure - ideally, prevent - SIJ stiffness? Thanks for the videos, btw: excellently presented and useful.

[@anndarling9102]

I am having tight hips at the moment🥺 I have tried this one and it feels ok at the moment like everything you have to keep at it 🙄

[@GamesWithSpawn]

You should know that, as a beginner looking for alternatives to pigeon pose, when I went to do the last move where you are in lunge and squeezing your legs together as you press the front food down and pull it towards you, I felt a sharp pain along side the medial and distal portion of my knee. I was able to let up and the pain released after a few scary moments, but this happened following your instruction. If you know of any directions to avoid that, I’d add them to your flow.

[@HeartBonesYogaAnatomyMobility]

Thanks for sharing. Generally speaking, there shouldn't be any pain in the knee when doing these movements. Especially with the focus of how you're pressing the foot down into the floor while moving. Maybe you went further forward than your knee wanted to? If the sensation keeps up in other times you're doing a lunge, then I would suggest to work with a physiotherapist in person so they can see what's going on specifically in your knee as it's hard to do that with online lessons. Hope that helps a bit!