hip mobility

If your athletes are anything like mine, a lot of them have movement deficiencies with squatting, stepping, lunging and changing direction. Then, when they get injured and you are assessing them you notice how tight their hips are. When you ask them to squat or demonstrate a dynamic movement, they have difficulty.

Sitting for most of the day and then participating in a sport that asks the body to perform a similar task (predominantly sagittal plane) is contributing to our athletes having tight hips that restrict their performance. They are not going to be able to generate full force on their lifts, changing direction, landing or pivot easily due to their restrictions. Helping them to open their hips and improve their mobility will improve their on-field performance and long term health of their hips.

Starting with some foam rolling and massage is a good start for breaking adhesions and fascial restrictions that are limiting their motion. Static stretching can be indicated for those areas that are extra tight and can involve Thomas stretching, kneeling lunge stretching with or without elevating the rear foot, and quadriceps and hip flexor stretching.

Activating their core musculature with static holds and low skill stability exercises teach them how to maintain their posture while their hips move in different directions. This is necessary for higher technical lifts and movements they will encounter in their sport. Examples include bridges, side leg raises, leg swings, bird dogs, fire hydrants, single leg Romanian deadlifts , spidermans, and other exercises.

Progressively teaching and reinforcing more technical exercises that stress their body will help to develop long term mobility in their hips. Training them to move in multiple planes will be effective in terms of gaining increased movement potential and carry over to sport. Exercises that can accomplish this are lateral lunges and squats, reverse lunges with rotation or an overhead reach, drop step lunges and squats, and lateral step ups.

Attacking the limitations in hip mobility can improve functional movement, improve quickness and deceleration, and decrease risk of injury. 

What exercises have you found to be effective in terms of improving hip mobility? Do you have progressions you use with your athletes?

Resources:

http://www.strengthcoach.com/public/1298.cfm

http://movement-as-medicine.com/4-hip-mobility-drills-to-improve-your-squat/