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We often do hip external rotation in yoga – but we don’t always strengthen it. Here are five smart ways to turn that position into active work for your outer hips.
We do a lot of hip external rotation in yoga, right?
For example, warrior 2, half moon, pigeon pose, and baddha konasana are all yoga poses that involve hip external rotation.
But did you know? For as many externally-rotated yoga poses that we do, we don’t really *strengthen* our hips in external rotation in a traditional yoga practice. It’s true!
The Difference Between Position and Action
This is because when it comes to movement, there’s an important distinction between position and action. (This is an essential biomechanics 101 lesson that’s key for understanding movement as yoga teachers!)
We can be aligned in a particular position (e.g. hip external rotation) while at the same time not really be working our hip external rotator muscles.
Take warrior 2, for example:
Warrior 2 (virabhadrasana 2)
It’s true that our front hip is in a position of external rotation in this pose. But our hip external rotators aren’t working against much, if any, resistance in this pose.
(Yes, they might be working a bit to pull the front knee laterally for yoga students whose front knee likes to track inward. But this is a low amount of effort that’s unlikely to meet the threshold required for strengthening.)
If you were to instead loop a resistance band around your front knee, anchor it off to the side so that it pulls your knee inward, and then press out with your knee into that band, then we might be talking about enough effort to potentially be strengthening for the external rotators:
A variation of warrior 2 that actually loads the external rotators!
Yes, this warrior 2 variation ⬆️ strengthens hip external rotation, but is it practical?
The resistance band in warrior 2 technique I described above is one idea we could implement to truly work on hip external rotation strength in yoga!
However, it’s not one of my favorite ideas 😛, because the fact that you need a sturdy anchor point near your yoga mat for your resistance band makes it a bit complicated. You know?
On the other hand, here are some external rotation strengthening ideas that are less complicated, and therefore qualify as my true favorites for bringing into yoga! 😉
My Favorite (Practical) Hip External Rotation Strengtheners We Can Do In Yoga:
1) Warrior 3/half moon rotations
In this move, we start in warrior 3 and then externally rotate our standing leg’s hip until we arrive in half moon.
Then from half moon, we lower with control back to warrior 3.
Fun fact: in the fitness and rehab worlds, this move is usually called a “hip airplane”. But in our yoga context, I think it resonates more as “warrior 3/half moon rotations”. 🙂
Another fun fact heh heh: this warrior 3 –> half moon transition is often fearmongered about in the yoga world, but did you know?? Biomechanically, this move is perfectly safe, and is a great way to load the hips! Read more about this topic in this thorough blog post!
2) Banded hip external rotations
All you need is a resistance band and you can do these resisted hip external rotations right on your yoga mat!
Loop the band around your right foot and hold it in your left hand, anchoring the band at your left hip.
Step your feet out wide and turn your right toes out against the resistance of the band, and turn them back in with control. Let me know if you feel the 🔥!
3) Clamshell raise
You’ve probably seen the more common variation of the clamshell raise, in which we lie on our side and just lift that top knee away from the bottom knee.
This variation here is a progression on that version. Here, we lift our bottom hip off the floor as we lift our top knee at the same time!
The end result is that we work our hip external rotators on both hips in one great movement:
4) Pigeon Hinges
Pigeon pose is usually practiced passively, with the pelvis resting on the floor and the focus on stretching. But if we slightly modify the setup, pigeon can become a powerful strength-builder for the hip external rotators.
In this variation – which we call a pigeon hinge in Strength for Yoga – you start in pigeon pose but keep your pelvis lifted off the floor instead of letting it rest all the way down. (In the GIF below, you’ll see the setup supported on a yoga block, which is a great option! For more challenge, you can remove the block and let your pelvis hover in the air.)
Just holding this lifted position isometrically already calls on our hip muscles to stay engaged. To increase the challenge, we can add a hinge: we fold forward over our front leg, then lift our torso back up. This dynamic movement adds load and makes our hip external rotators work even harder. Try 6–8 slow, controlled reps on each side.
5) Quadruped Hip Arcs
Quadruped hip arcs are a great way to strengthen the outer hips – and unlike traditional leg lifts, they include rotation, which means the hip rotators get a more targeted challenge.
(The truth is that because of the body’s relationship to gravity, the main direction of motion that’s challenged is hip abduction, but I still love this move because we get to mobilize through the hip in a rotational manner as we challenge abduction.)
We start on hands and knees, then extend one leg straight out to the side with our inner foot on the floor. From there, we lift our heel first (this internally rotates the hip), and arc the leg up and over to place the heel down on the opposite side. (This externally rotates the hip.) Then we reverse the arc: lift the toes to come up onto the heel and bring the leg back the way it came, aiming the toes for the floor.
This up-and-over arc includes both abduction and rotation (both external and internal), making it a strength challenge through a full rotational range of the hips. Try 4–6 arcs in each direction per side, keeping the movement slow and controlled.
Main Takeaway: Strengthening the hip external rotators involves more than just being in external rotation!
As you can see, while traditional yoga gives us plenty of opportunities to be in external rotation, it doesn’t always give us the chance to actively strengthen that movement. But with a few simple tweaks – like the options above – we can make our yoga practice a much more effective place for building strength and resilience in the hips.
And if you’d like more of a visual demonstration, I cover all five of these moves in more depth in this video!
