"The Hips Don't Lie" and who are we to argue?
Hips have been a hot topic around here at the moment. An Fear Rua, a major website covering all the top information in the GAA (Gaelic Amateur Athletics, Ireland’s indigenous sport) have published an article I recently wrote talking about hip strength for injury prevention in their athletes.
In the article I talk about the importance of strengthening the hip in order to prevent the most commonly occurring off the ball injuries, the knee. Today’s post isn’t going to be a rehash of the article, but does support it.
I’ve a soccer playing athlete recently joined me. He’s been complaining of hamstring injury and chronic tightness in the hammies for the last few years. Physio’s that he;s seen have told him to rest, and when he does he gets some respite. However as soon as he’s back on the ball, his injury rears its ugly head and he’s lucky to see out the season.
By chance he stumbled across Wild Geese and within a few weeks we’ve gone a long way to reduce his pain and loosen his hamstrings. How? Not with stretching, but with strength. Not strength in the hamstrings themselves but int he glutes.
I introduced him to a the Bridge and the Hip Thrust exercise. I have to tip my hat to Bret “the Glute Guy” Contreras for relaunching these drills into the weight training psyche. The following video shows how we integrate the hip thrust into a training program. in this case it’s a contrast set.
We take the Hip thrust for 5 reps, rest 30- 45 seconds then Swing the kettlebell for 8 reps in each hand. this is repeated for 4-6 sets.
The first exercise targets the glutes directly, the second integrates them into the whole. End result, stronger, more efficient hips, which will allow the hamstrings to relax and return to their resting length.
Here’s the video:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylbYvSM_7PM?hl=en&fs=1]
As always, use common sense when trying out any new exercise or protocol.
Regards
Dave www.wg-fit.com