Think of a sport that doesn’t involve hip mobility.
Ok, yeah, darts, snooker. They’re more games than any great athletic activity. Athleticism is defined by powerful, graceful movement. The best athletes are often remarked upon for fluid, cat like movement. And cats are agile.
For us humans, we are bipedal, in other words we move on two legs. I’m pretty sure that’s not ground breaking news for you. But this ability to stand erect is unique in the animal kingdom and it is all down to our unique pelvis and hip joint. Our ability to run, sprint, jump, change direction and of course kick people in the head comes down to hip mobility. A large number of knee injuries in the field sports environment as a direct result of poor mobility through the hip joint meaning all the torque and sheer forces from rapid changes of direction are taken by the knee. And the knee doesn’t like to twist.
So to clean up our movement and keep out knees happy we really must spend time opening the hips up. The hip is a ball and socket joint, it moves in every possible direction, so a mobility program for the joint must take the hip through every section of movement. This can be tricky, but the following sequence is about as good as you’ll get. There is Flexion where the hamstring is stretched, hyper extension where the hip flexor is stretched. we have abduction and adduction as well as twisting into these positions which rotates the hip in the socket.
This is a moving drill. You may start as slow as needed and gradually crank up the speed and amplitude of the movement as you loosen up. If, as you flow through the set, one particular position of movement is tighter than others, slow down and even pause for a few seconds.
It is a good idea to add this into your warm ups, somewhere in the latter section when the core temperature is raised and the body will respond better to the loosening effect of the drill.
Watch the video and enjoy:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Pgs0-BrAc&w=425&h=349]
Regards
Dave www.wg-fit.com
PS – Don’t forget the Level 1 Kettlebell Workshop taking place at Wild Geese on August 21st, 11am – 1pm. €35, including a copy of the Level 1 PDF Manual. Book it today as places are filling up fast.
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