![]() The athlete begins lying on his or her back with both legs vertical and knees straight. This is an excellent movement to improve hip flexion and active hamstring mobility. The following exercises should be a strong component of any athlete’s hip mobility work, as they will produce faster results than the typically prescribed foam roll and stretching routines. Still, when proper core stabilization movements are performed, this increased muscle tone instantly vanishes, and mobility problems are gone! The hip flexors (like the hamstrings) are another muscle group that often feels tight in athletes. The body’s response is to increase the tone in a muscle to provide some false-stabilization. Often, the body realizes it does not have the needed stability around a joint due to muscle weakness. Secondly, it will serve as a “reset” to muscle tone around the hips. Hip “mobility” work done this way will have two effects.įirst, it will reposition the pelvis to a more neutral position, allowing for improved mobility within the hip socket. As the athlete learns to better control the core and pelvis, mobility will drastically improve! Perform movements that challenge the available active hip range of motion while engaging the core to stabilize the pelvis. The solution to hip mobility problems is simple. And this effect can also be seen when working to improve hip extension, rotation, and functional patterns such as the squat. This simple repositioning of the pelvis can provide more gains than months of static stretching, manual therapy, and self-myofascial work combined. Quite often, simply cueing the athlete to “push your rib cage down” or “flatten your lower back into the floor” will result in a posterior pelvic tilt that instantly improves “hamstring mobility” and decreases the perception of hamstring tightness and muscle strain. To test this, I have athletes perform a straight leg raise while lying on their backs. More often than not, I find that simple core stabilization movements will provide immediate improvement in their perceived tightness or chronic hamstring muscle strains. In an anteriorly rotated pelvis, the hamstrings will have increased tension placed on them, thus resulting in a perceived decrease in flexibility. I’ve yet to meet an athlete who doesn’t claim to have “tight hamstrings.” Even in the elite gymnasts, dancers, runners, and yogis that I work with, the belief that their hamstrings should be further stretched is rampant. The hamstrings are the perfect example of the effects pelvic positioning can have on mobility. In contrast, and anterior pelvic tilt will result in increased hip extension. For example, a posterior tilt of the pelvis will put the hips in a position advantageous to improve hip flexion mobility. Contraction of the muscles around the pelvis can result in changes in pelvic positioning and thus available hip range of motion. Instead, small stability changes at the pelvis can provide drastically fast improvements in performance. ![]() Months of intense stretching techniques provide little actual change in available motion and only serve to waste time and create pain in the athletes. Quitting static stretching and refocusing your mobility work on more effective exercises will improve not only your mobility but your athletic performance as well! And will do so in a fraction of the time.īecause of the inherent stability of the hip joint provided by the ball-and-socket, many athletes and coaches spend far too much time trying to improve hip mobility by performing stretching and soft tissue work. Sadly their mobility work does not address the true root of their problems, and their constant stretching, foam rolling, and joint band distractions get them nowhere… AND THE HIPS ARE THE GREATEST EXAMPLE OF THIS PROBLEM with athletes everywhere wasting hours on useless mobility work! Unfortunately, most athletes performing these hip mobility drills have yet to figure out that much of their mobility work does not result in real performance gains! Mobility tools and drills are becoming commonplace in gyms, CrossFit boxes, and on the playing field. The fitness world has come a long way in our understanding of the importance mobility work has on athletic performance.
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