5 Somatic Hip Exercises For Beginners

🎶I’m on tonight, you know my hips don’t lie…🎶

We’ve all heard the song by Shakira right? And while it’s fun to dance and shake to, she makes a really good point, your hips truly don’t lie.

Your hips have a tendency to hold all of the emotions you’ve been repressing. So while you might tell yourself that you’re fine and you’ve worked through your chronic stress or trauma, your hips may tell a different story. Through stiffness, chronic pain, and habitual bracing patterns your hips tell the truth: you’re still holding on to those feelings.

Thankfully somatic yoga and somatic exercises can help.

How Are Emotions Stored In The Hips?

Emotions can be stored in the hips due to the body’s physiological response to stress and trauma. When we experience emotional stress, the body tends to tighten up as part of the “fight or flight” response, leading to chronic muscle tension. The hips, as a major stabilizing part of the body, often bear the brunt of this stress, especially if the emotions are related to fear, anxiety, or unresolved trauma. When the body feels the urge to flee (flight response), but can’t, the muscles in the lower body will carry this tension until the stress cycle can complete. Over time, these emotions can become “trapped” in the fascia, a connective tissue that surrounds muscles, causing discomfort, tightness, or even pain in the hip area. 

The Energetics of Emotions & The Hips

In yoga, the hips are considered a key emotional center because of their connection to the sacral chakra, which governs emotions, creativity, and relationships. This is why hip-opening yoga postures can elicit a strong emotional reaction, from tears to anger.

Somatic practices like yoga, meditation, somatic experiencing and breathwork help open the sacral chakra and release stored tension; facilitating not only physical flexibility but also emotional freedom. This is because your sacral chakra asks you to feel your emotions. And when your sacral chakra is open you have more of a zest for life, moving with more fluidity and finding the pleasure in life. It’s no surprise that somatic exercises are asking you to do the same things, move with more fluidity and pleasure, and feel your emotions. It’s why after your yoga teacher asks you do hip openers such as Pigeon Pose or Lizard Pose, those really deep stretches of the hip muscles, you can feel the release of pent-up emotions, leading to a sense of lightness and emotional freedom.

The Science of Emotions & The Hips

While more research needs to be done on the direct storage of emotions in the hips, the connection between muscle tension and emotional stress is well-documented. Showing that emotional stress can cause muscle tightness, particularly in areas of the body used frequently for movement, like the hips. In fact, the psoas major, a muscle that runs from your lower back(lumbar spine) through the front of your hip, is actually directly involved with your autonomic nervous system. It is one of the first muscles that respond when the stress response(fight/flight/freeze) is activated. 

If these muscles are activated every time you encounter stressors, it stands to reason that eventually they are going to store that tension. Creating habitual bracing patterns in response to trauma or chronic stress.

This is why the hips are considered a key area for emotional release, they express the physical manifestations of unprocessed emotions.

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How Somatic Exercises Help Release Stored Emotions In The Hips

Somatic release techniques release the hips by focusing on slow, mindful breath and movements that bring awareness to areas of tension. Somatic movement gently re-trains the muscles to release that stored tension by moving in soothing, non-habitual ways. The goal is to tap into the mind body connection and work with the nervous system in order to change habitual movement patterns. To bring more fluidity and pleasure to the body, creating a sense of safety, and allowing the body to let go of deeply held stress or trauma.

Here’s how some of the somatic yoga benefits help with hip release:

• Body Awareness: Somatic awareness teaches you to notice where tension is stored in the hips through small, gentle movements. By paying attention to your body’s more subtle cues, you can consciously release tightness.
• Releasing Emotions: The hips are often a storage area for emotions like fear, sadness, or anxiety. Through somatic healing practices, you gradually release these stored emotions, which can also reduce physical tension.
• Reprogramming Movement Patterns: Over time, somatic movement re-trains your nervous system, helping it “unlearn” the habitual muscle tightening that often occurs in the hips due to stress or poor posture.

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Symptoms of Tight Hips

If you’re unsure about the state of your hips or whether you should try somatic movement/somatic yoga, it’s time to check in with your bodily sensations. Tune into your hips and ask yourself if you’re experiencing any of the following physical symptoms:

• Chronic hip pain or stiffness
• Limited mobility, especially in yoga poses or daily movements
• Emotional feelings of heaviness or being “stuck”

If you answered yes, I’d say give somatic yoga for beginners a try.

I love this class to help with mobility:

Somatic Exercises & Movement Examples

The reason somatic movement works is that it increases your body awareness and communicates directly with your nervous system. It uses the mind body connection to uncover where inefficient movement patterns, uncomfortable bodily sensations and emotional stresses are often “stored.”

Some somatic experiencing techniques that can work directly with the hips include, but are not limited to:

• Somatic Breathing: The slow mindful breathing techniques of somatic breathwork are great for relieving stress and activating your parasympathetic nervous system.
• Pelvic Tilts: These small gentle movements create a sense of calm and bring awareness to the position of your pelvis in space.
• Hip Circles: Gentle circular motions that explore the full range of motion in the hip joint can increase mobility and clue you in on where excess tension may be held.
• Leg Lifts: Slow, intentional lifts will engage and release different parts of the hip.

Unlike stretching alone, somatic movement actively teaches the brain to let go of increased tension, resulting in lasting relief for both physical pain and emotional stress held in the hips. Let’s go over exactly how to perform these moves, and a couple more, so you can experience them in your own body.

5 Somatic Hip Exercises For Release

Whether you’re doing a specific somatic yoga for trauma sequence or moving freely, somatic yoga/somatic movement can be a powerful way to release stored emotions & trauma in the body, particularly in the hips.

Use these gentle, mindful movements to release deep-seated muscular tension, promote emotional freedom, and encourage physical flexibility. Below are some specific somatic exercises to support physical, emotional, and trauma release:

Or if you’re looking for one to follow along to, here’s a great somatic yoga flow specifically for your hips:

1. Pelvic Tilts for Emotional Release

You’ll start by lying on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Slowly tilt your pelvis forward and backward, paying attention to the sensations in your hips and lower back. It is a very small, gentle rocking motion. This movement helps increase awareness in the pelvis and unlock emotional tension allowing the hips to gently release.

2. Hip Circles for Trauma Release

Stand or sit comfortably, whichever feels most comfortable for you, and make slow, circular motions with your hips. Start slow with small circles and gradually let them get larger. Focus on how the muscles in your hips feel with each movement. Go in one direction and if or when it feels good switch directions. Hip circles help in releasing trauma by engaging in full range of motion, loosening tight hip flexors and strengthening them. Circular movements are also great for soothing the nervous system.

3. Leg Slides for Stress Relief

Lie on your back, resting your head on the ground with your legs extended. Slowly slide one leg up, bending at the knee, then slide it back down. Alternate sides and pay attention to how your hips respond. This gentle movement helps reduce stress by slowly acting out the body’s desire to “flee”, aka run away. This releases stored tension in the lower body, particularly in the hip joints.

4. Seated Knee Drops for Tension Release

Sit with your knees bent and soles of your feet flat on the floor. You can also do this lying down if that helps you feel more supported. Slowly let one knee drop out to the side while keeping the other knee stable. Alternate sides, moving the legs similar to windshield wipers. As with any somatic practice, move with control and mindfulness. This movement helps release emotions stored in the hip joints by gently stretching the inner thighs and promoting hip mobility.

5. Hip Flexor Stretch for Trauma Release

Kneel on one knee with the other leg bent in front, foot flat on the floor(basically a low lunge). Gently shift your hips forward, stretching the front of the hip and thigh of the back leg. Focus on the sensations in your legs and hips and move slowly. You can also add in a gentle rocking motion from side to side or front to back. This stretch opens the hip flexors, which often become tight when the body holds onto fear or anxiety.

These somatic movements not only support physical flexibility but also offer emotional well being and healing by helping the body “unlearn” tension patterns. When you start to release these habitual tension patterns, deeply tune into your body, and move the way it wants you to, you can truly start to heal.

Pro tip: you can find experts in somatic coaching who can create a care plan specific to your needs. Working with a somatic therapist or coach can be a total game changer.

Closing Thoughts

When I say that incorporating somatics into your practice is a game changer I mean it. Through this work, I was able to release emotional programming I had been holding onto for years. Things I had worked on in talk therapy for a very long time were able to heal in months. This is why I’m so passionate about it. So much so that I created my own somatic training course.

Once you lean into this amazing practice and start trusting not just the process but yourself, your whole world will shift.