Exercise

Wide Leg Squat

Physiotherapist Charissa Fermelis shares a stretch for your hips, legs and back.

Written by Charissa Fermelis

How to

  1. With the feet wide apart, rotate your legs outwards by externally rotating the feet. Fold forward from the hip and place your hands on the floor beneath you.
  2. Inhale to reach your bottom higher in the air, exhale to slide your hands to your feet. Grasp your arches with your hands and take your bottom towards the floor, bending your knees and pressing them out to the side with your arms.
  3. Allow your pelvis to sink into the pose, releasing tension from the lower back and hips. Think of your torso like a see-saw – as your tail gets lower to the ground, lift the chest higher.

Tips

The pelvis is not a solid ring of bone, but rather a composition of two hemi-pelvises and your sacrum, with three joints connecting it all together. Like any joint in the body, there needs to be adequate mobility and stability for optimal function.

This is particularly important around the pelvis, given the large load transference passing between the upper body and lower body with each step. Sometimes the sacroiliac joints (at the back) can become stiff and compressed, unstable or a combination of both.

Stretch out your whole body with the be. Stretching Guide.

Written by Charissa Fermelis

Charissa Fermelis is a physiotherapist, Pilates practitioner and Director of Grounded Movement in Melbourne.

Previous article

Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend (Pancake stretch)

Next article

Wide-Legged Forward Bend

Related articles

Subscribe to receive the best from Live Better every week. Healthy recipes, exercise tips and activities, offers and promotions – everything to help you eat, move and feel better.

By clicking sign up I understand and agree to Medibank's privacy policy

Thanks for subscribing. You’re on the road to a better, healthier version of you!