maratoolIT Band and Glute Stretch
How to do the it band and glute stretch
- Loop a belt, rope, or band around one of your feet, and swing that leg across your body to the opposite side, keeping the leg extended as you lay on the ground. This will be your starting position.
- Keeping your foot off of the floor, pull on the belt, using the tension to pull the toes up. Hold for 10-20 seconds, and repeat on the other side.
Muscles worked
The muscles under tension are the hip abductors — gluteus medius and minimus, which drive the thigh away from the midline and keep the pelvis level when you stand on one leg.
A stretch loads them at the far end of the range they normally work in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.
Every exercise for:Abductors
How this movement works
Nothing travels once you are in position. The muscle holds a length under tension instead of working through a range, so effort is measured in seconds rather than repetitions — and the honest progression is more time in a good position, not a deeper one forced early.
It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.
What you need
These train the abductors too, using equipment this one does not:
- Lying Crossoverbody only
- Monster Walkband
- Thigh Abductormachine
- Iliotibial Tract-SMRfoam roll
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 8 abductors exercises in this database, 3 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.