Two Evanston Athletic Trainers Demonstrate A Unique Way Of Performing The Pigeon Squat Exercise!

– Hi, everyone, my name is Dr. Brett Boddicker, and with me today is my fellow athletic trainer, Denny Wongosari. We are both ATs here at Cornerstone Health, and today we’re gonna be talking about another hip-based exercise for patients that are experiencing hip pain. If you happen to be a weekend warrior or someone that likes to live an active lifestyle, and you want to improve your flexibility and your level of function in the hip, today we’re gonna go through an exercise called Pigeon Squat, which is gonna target the posterior portion of your hip.

Now, we’re gonna go through our Pigeon Squat exercise. As a reminder, we are targeting the right leg in this demonstration, and we’re gonna be targeting the gluteal area of the hip. So, for this exercise, while you’re at home, you’re gonna start from a pushup position. You will raise the right leg and bring your knee to the level of your belly button. There is a lot of variety in terms of the way Pigeon Squat is taught. The reason we teach it with the knee under the belly button is that we are capturing the muscle as well as the ligaments that are towards your sacrum, or towards the middle part just below your spine. From this position, the back is gonna maintain a flat level, and Denny is going to push his hips back and over the knee that is forward, just like this. You’re gonna feel a deep stretch right about here. Is that where you feel the stretch, Denny?

– Yes.

– Good. You can add to this stretch by pushing off of your back leg, using your knee as a lever to draw your body back up, and then slowly sink into the position again, ideally getting a little bit deeper. That will increase the stretch, and it will also increase the level of released tension and lead to improvement in your level of function and reduce your pain.

Now that we’ve gone through the Pigeon Squat exercise together, we’re going to talk about a recommended dosage, or how many times to perform this exercise. In terms of overall general health, five to six repetitions of the Pigeon Squat on each leg in the morning or the evening is a really good way to keep yourself healthy. If we’re talking about before your activity, whether that be running, biking, rock climbing, or whatever you like to do, incorporate five to six repetitions on each leg as a part of your active warmup before you begin your activity.