• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Breaking Muscle

Breaking Muscle

Breaking Muscle

  • Fitness
  • Workouts
    • Best Shoulder Workouts
    • Best Chest Workouts
    • Best Leg Workouts
    • Best Leg Exercises
    • Best Biceps Exercises
    • Best Kettlebell Exercises
    • Best Back Workouts
    • Best HIIT Workouts
    • Best Triceps Exercises
    • Best Arm Workouts
  • Reviews
    • Supplements
      • Best Pre-Workout
      • Best BCAAs
      • Best Testosterone Boosters
      • Best Bodybuilding Supplements
      • Best Creatine
      • Best Supplements for Weight Loss
      • Best Multivitamins
      • Best Collagen Supplement
      • Best Probiotic
      • Best Non-Stim Pre-Workout
      • Best Greens Powder
      • Best Magnesium Supplements
    • Protein
      • Best Protein Powder
      • Best Whey Protein
      • Best Protein Powders for Muscle Gain
      • Best Tasting Protein Powder
      • Best Vegan Protein
      • Best Mass Gainer
      • Best Protein Shakes
      • Best Organic Protein Powder
      • Best Pea Protein Powder
      • Best Protein Bars
    • Strength Equipment
      • Best Home Gym Equipment
      • Best Squat Racks
      • Best Barbells
      • Best Weightlifting Belts
      • Best Weight Benches
      • Best Functional Trainers
      • Best Dumbbells
      • Best Adjustable Dumbbells
      • Best Kettlebells
      • Best Resistance Bands
      • Best Trap Bars
    • Cardio Equipment
      • Best Cardio Machines
      • Best Rowing Machines
      • Best Treadmills
      • Best Weighted Vests
      • Concept2 RowErg Review
      • Hydrow Wave Review
      • Best Jump Ropes
  • News
  • Exercise Guides
    • Legs
      • Back Squat
      • Bulgarian Split Squat
      • Goblet Squat
      • Zercher Squat
      • Standing Calf Raise
      • Hack Squat
    • Chest
      • Bench Press
      • Dumbbell Bench Press
      • Close-Grip Bench Press
      • Incline Bench Press
    • Shoulders
      • Overhead Dumbbell Press
      • Lateral Raise
    • Arms
      • Chin-Up
      • Weighted Pull-Up
      • Triceps Pushdown
    • Back
      • Deadlift
      • Trap Bar Deadlift
      • Lat Pulldown
      • Inverted Row
      • Bent-Over Barbell Row
      • Single-Arm Dumbbell Row
      • Pendlay Row
Fitness

Developing Explosive Hip Power for Improved Speed and Performance

Great athletes have great hips. And all athletes need hip mobility, stability, and explosiveness.

Carl Putman

Written by Carl Putman Last updated on Nov 22, 2021

Photo by Bev Childress

Great athletes have great hips. That is a motto I use in my training programs with athletes, and it has proven time and again to be one of our most effective protocols for improving speed and explosiveness.

The Role of the Hips for All Athletes

I define an athlete as anyone performing a physical activity in pursuit of a certain goal or performance level. Examples range from traditional sports like basketball and football to tactical athletes, weekend warriors, or those who need to fulfill certain physical demands to perform at work, such as picking up heavy objects and moving them (stock clerks, warehouse workers, etc.)

While the role of the hips may vary depending on the situation, all of these athletes need hip mobility, stability, and at least some measure of explosiveness to perform at a high level.

In this article, we will focus primarily on improving mobility and explosiveness in the hips in three different capacities:

  1. Hips crucial role in any hinging movement in lifting, such as deadlifts, cleans and snatches.
  2. Explosive hip extension being key in the vertical leap and acceleration in sprinting.
  3. The primary role that hip flexors play in leg recovery mechanics when sprinting at top speed.

Let’s break down each of these components so you can learn how improving hip function will improve your performance.

Correcting the Hip Hinge

Proper hip hinge movement is vital to correctly performing lifts like the deadlift or cleans, and it sets the stage for more explosive hip extension. While the hip hinge is certainly not rocket science, it is one of the most abused and misinformed movement patterns I encounter with athletes. 

The inability to flex the hips back while maintaining a strong core or spine is a major issue, and one that needs to be addressed before we tackle explosive hip extension.

The most common movement inconsistency we see is athletes lacking hamstring flexibility and/or lower back strength and thus compensating. The inability to flex the hips back while maintaining a strong core or spine is a major issue, and one that needs to be addressed before we tackle explosive hip extension.

Creating mobility and flexibility is crucial, and our best fix is simple and effective. I believe mastery of a skill-set is defined as the ability to take complex tasks and simplify them for maximum effectiveness, as opposed to reinventing the wheel. That being said, we use a simple PVC pipe or dowel to correct the hip hinge. 

The athlete aligns the dowel along the spine, focusing on three points of contact: 

  1. The back of the head
  2. The top of the spine just above the shoulder blades
  3. The tailbone

We then have the athlete perfect the hip hinge by performing the exercise with the dowel through a full range of motion, or as far as flexibility allows before breaking form, with emphasis on maintaining a straight spine and all three points of contact. Once we have established the correct movement pattern, then the athlete must practice, practice, practice.

When we feel the athlete can make the neuromuscular adjustment and perform a correct hip hinge, we then load the movement. We begin with basic kettlebell Romanian deadlift, and if he or she demonstrates competency there, we progress to kettlebell swings.

Swings are arguably our favorite exercise to teach the hip hinge at speed, which is crucial to athletic performance in exercises like the vertical leap. These types of movements include a powerful change of direction, or countermovement from loading to extension, just like the kettlebell swing.

When we feel the athlete can make the neuromuscular adjustment and perform a correct hip hinge, we then load the movement.

Creating Explosive Hip Extension

Once a correct hip hinge is established, explosive hip extension becomes a priority to improve speed or power. Hip extension is the ability to drive the hips forward from a hinged position at high velocity. While it is a simple motion, it is often overlooked as a component of training and one that we like to focus on to potentially break plateaus when other factors are already strong.

As always, we have to look for limiting factors before we begin more explosive training protocols. There is a host of potential weak links, ranging from weak glutes to tight hip flexors. Each requires a specific fix, but our favorite overall fix is a glute bridge. We always start without weight to teach athletes what full extension feels like, and then we use resistance to train the ability to engage the core and glutes for a more explosive motion.

Once the correct pattern is established, we progress to explosive movements that concentrate on hip extension, Depending on the athlete, we even attempt to isolate that movement. In those cases we like to use a kneeling pop-up drill to emphasize using the hips to generate power. By removing legs from the equation, this drill forces the hips to move quickly to achieve success.

Athletes will begin in a kneeling position, load the movement by sitting back and swinging the arms back, and then explosively change direction by swinging the arms forward and extending the hips. When performed correctly, the athlete will leave the ground and be able to land safely.

Strengthening the Hip Flexors

The hip flexors are tight in most populations, particularly people who spend a majority of their days sitting in classrooms or offices, practicing for two hours, and then resuming sitting the rest of the night. So, we have to understand that most athletes will have weak and inflexible hip flexors and this is a major inhibitor for speed and explosiveness.

As with the hip hinge and explosive hip extension, we address the limiting factors prior to training for speed. Primarily, our athletes need the ability to create separation between the hips in a running motion, driving one knee forward while the other fully extends back. 

We have to understand that most athletes will have weak and inflexible hip flexors and this is a major inhibitor for speed and explosiveness.

At my gym, we address any limiting factors primarily in our dynamic warm up, which contains about fifteen different hip-related exercises. But one go-to drill to create results is the pulsed hip flexor stretch. 

In a half-kneeling position, the athlete will push the anterior knee forward as far as possible. It is vital to keep the front foot flat and maintain correct posture while holding the stretch. The athlete will hold the stretch for a few seconds, return to a relaxed position, then repeat the stretch for four to eight reps.

To improve speed, there are countless drills we can use, but we prefer to keep it simple and effective and use the classic wall drive drill. The key to this drill, like any speed-related drill is attention to detail. 

Athletes have to lean against the wall at a diagonal angle, pick one knee up so that the shin and body are parallel, and then explosively switch legs. The hip flexor’s role is key in forward knee drive, so it is important to maintain a tight core and body position to effectively perform the drill and create separation between the hips.

It’s All in the Hips: Putting It All Together

The hips and the associated movements and training are a complex issue that certainly can’t be fully addressed in one article. But I hope after reading this that you have some new insights on how to improve your own training programs and that you might even be able to break through some plateaus by incorporating more hip training. If so, we’d love to hear about it so make sure to leave us a comment below.

Carl Putman

About Carl Putman

Carl Putman is the Program Director for the Parisi Speed School in Melbourne, Florida. His mission is to develop and utilize his skills, knowledge and energy to educate and empower children, adults, and athletes of all ages and abilities. Carl joined Parisi Speed School XPC in 2011 as the Program Director and Director of Team Training and has since worked with a variety of athletes from seven years old to World Champions. He specializes in working with teams and coaches on improving their speed, conditioning, and strength programs.

Carl also works as a specialist and adjunct instructor for the Public Safety Institute at Eastern Florida State College training future law enforcement cadets and implementing new programs. In addition, Carl is an author numerous articles relating to sports and exercise on sites such as STACK.com and Livestrong.com. He also maintains a blog.

Carl graduated with a B.A. in Sport Management from Flagler College in 2008. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), a Certified Parisi Speed School Performance Coach, holds a certification in personal training with the NCSF, is an instructor with the FHSTCA Tennis Coaching Certification, and is also certified in CPR/First Aid/AED for adults and pediatric.

View All Articles

Related Posts

Fergus Crawley 5K Run Tips Photo
Fergus Crawley Shares 5 Tips For Running a Better 5K
Actor Chris Hemsworth in gym performing dumbbell row
Chris Hemsworth Diagrams a Killer Upper Body Workout Fit For an Action Star
Hugh Jackman Deadpool 3 Workouts Spring:Winter 2023
Hugh Jackman Returns to Wolverine Condition in Workouts for “Deadpool 3”
Method Man Incline Dumbbell Presses December 2022
Check Out Rapper Method Man Cruising Through 120-Pound Incline Dumbbell Presses for 10 Reps

Primary Sidebar

Latest Articles

New Year’s Fitness Sales (2025)

XWERKS Motion BCAA Review (2025): A Registered Dietitian’s Honest Thoughts

Assault Fitness AssaultBike Pro X Review (2025): Assault’s Best Bike Yet?

13 Best Exercise Bikes for Home Gyms (2025)

Transparent Labs BCAA Glutamine Review (2025): The Key to Post-Workout Recovery?

Latest Reviews

Element 26 Hybrid Leather Weightlifting Belt

Element 26 Hybrid Leather Weightlifting Belt Review (2025)

Omre NMN + Resveratrol, Lifeforce Peak NMN, and partiQlar NMN on a red background

Best NMN Supplement: Fountain of Youth in a Bottle? (2025)

The Titan Series Adjustable Bench on a red background

Titan Series Adjustable Bench Review (2025)

A photo of the NordicTrack Select-a-Weight Dumbbells on a red background

NordicTrack Adjustable Dumbbell Review (2025): Are These Value Dumbbells Worth It?

woman lifting barbell

Be the smartest person in your gym

The Breaking Muscle newsletter is everything you need to know about strength in a 3 minute read.

I WANT IN!

Breaking Muscle is the fitness world’s preeminent destination for timely, high-quality information on exercise, fitness, health, and nutrition. Our audience encompasses the entire spectrum of the fitness community: consumers, aficionados, fitness professionals, and business owners. We seek to inform, educate and advocate for this community.

  • Reviews
  • Healthy Eating
  • Workouts
  • Fitness
  • News

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS Feed

© 2025 · Breaking Muscle · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · Affiliate Disclaimer · Accessibility · About