Couple questions on hip/upper thigh area

Just a couple things that I have noticed while doing my flexibility work.

The first one is when I am in the straddle position trying to stretch out my inner thigh I usually have to stop due to a discomfort in my outer thigh (I suppose around the glute med. area), rather than me stopping due to the stretch around the inner thigh. I also feel this when kicking, having to stop my kick short due to this discomfort rather than a stretch of the inner thigh. Is this normal to feel?

The other query is a clicking in the left hip joint. It's not painful or anything but my kicks on the left don't seem to have as full a range of motion as my right and I wonder the two are related. The most noticeable time I hear these clicks are when I am lying on my back and my left leg is raised then when I bring it down just over half way it clicks. Thing is my right leg does this action very smoothly.

So, any ideas guys?

Outer thigh thing sounds like the IT band maybe. If you poke around the outside of your thigh, coming down from your glutes and you feel tender bits, good chance the IT band is rpetty involved.

The clicking hip thing on flexion is usually the psoas muscle, you can try some psoas stretching and see if it helps. If you do a job (or anything else) where you sit for long periods of time, both of these problems will be exacerbated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psoas_major_muscle

http://www.floota.com/PsoasStretch1.html

That is best stretch IMO, there is another common one where you are doing the same thing but simply propped up the back knee, I have never had any luck with that stretch.

http://www.floota.com/QuadratusLumborumStretch1.html

Here's a QL stretch (antagonist to psoas), you could also stretch that a bit, this stretch also helps with HIT band on the other side, so you'd be getting everything.