HIP MOBILITY
These exercises are more than just the key to lizard hips, limbering up on the dancefloor! Keeping your hips mobile is so important for life. Tight hips can seriously restrict leg movement and cause all kinds of back pain. Often knee pain is related to poor hip mobility. In addition, mobile hips are essential for activities like deep squatting.
SIDE WEIGHT SHIFT
Juicier than a tin of beans this one. A fantastic exercise for those who experience tightness in the hips. Do you struggle to get low in a squat without losing your balance? Are you unable to sit cross legged? If so this is a great place to start! The foot you’re leaning into wants to remain planted to the ground. The knee should travel over the toes, with no dropping inwards. The back foot ideally wants to be rotating inwards but go with a range of motion that works for you!
SUGGESTED REPS: 5 followed by 30s hold each side
FROG
This epic stretch is another beauty if you suffer from tightness in the hips. It’s a fantastic way to warm up for squats. By warming up the groin, hip flexors and abductors you’ll find it easier to get to decent depth when squatting or olympic lifting. This exercise can also be used to prevent valgus knee during lunges, deadlifts and squats. If your ankle mobility is limited then just do what you can in terms of the foot placement, bring your feet closer together initially if required.
SUGGESTED REPS - 5 pulses then 30s hold each side, push knees hard into the ground then relax and see if you can increase your range of motion.
MODIFIED SPLITS STRETCH AND HEEL SIT
This is a brilliant place to start if you’d like to learn how to do the splits. It’s also a fabulous stretch for the hamstrings and hip flexors. Make sure that the legs are aligned and the back leg isn’t twisting in. Keep the front leg locked out. You should feel your quadricep engaging hard. Once you’ve held a 30s stretch, sit on your heels to give those quads a bonus juicy stretch.
SUGGESTED REPS: 3 x 30s hold each side aiming to increase each time. Heel sits hold for 30s or as long as possible if you can’t get right down to the heels.
KNEE DROP SQUAT
I have a love-hate relationship with this exercise. Superb for hip internal rotation (hip adduction) but quite challenging! Holding a deep squat and dropping a knee is a serious display of hip mobility. Hip adduction is important for many sports such as football or basketball where there are often sudden changes in direction. Being efficient at internal rotation is key for stability and can help the prevention of back injuries when lifting. It also makes for a very clean looking squat.
SUGGESTED REPS: 3 sets of 10
