Our previous video dealt with Ankle Mobility. This time, I want to review your hip flexibility, specifically abductors and adductors, and hip flexors, predominantly how tightness in those areas hinders your mobility.
Our previous video dealt with Ankle Mobility. This time, I want to review your hip flexibility, specifically abductors and adductors, and hip flexors, predominantly how tightness in those areas hinders your mobility.
Basic Hip Mechanics
Let’s take a look at the fundamental structure of the hips. There’s a group of six muscles and you can fairly compare the structure to the rotator cuff muscles of the shoulder. You can read a lot more about the mechanics of the hips here: The Balance of Power in the Hips. I am going to just get into the actual work in the video below. But, here’s a nice quote from the article to put it all in perspective.
These muscles, along with the ligaments, provide the hip with a balanced sense of stability. From there, layers of muscles allow the femur (thigh bone) to move in all directions. Many of the hip muscles do several things, like bring the hip forward and rotate it inwards, or move it backward and into external rotation. Instead of focusing on what each individual muscle does, you can create a sense of balanced strength and mobility throughout the hip’s range of motion. Once you do, everything tends to work (and feel) a whole lot better.
Poor hip extension is associated with tight hip flexor muscles, which are the muscles in the front of your leg that stretch when you try to move your leg back behind you. To add to this tightness, some of your hip flexor muscles are short and broad, and these types of muscles tend to be hard to stretch.
The hip flexor muscles are also hard for most people to isolate for stretching or active movements that require flexibility. Then, there’s the adductors and abductors which perform differently in men and women but also play a role in your hip mobility.
I am working with Wade Maselich, again, over at my gym Precision CrossFit in Agoura Hills, California, as part of this series. We start this video with some tests that you can do on yourself to see how mobile our hips are. It follows with some massage techniques leading into stretches and movements that will help create more flexibility.
Finally, how you can strengthen your hips as part of your mobility practice for this pivotal segment of your body. Michael Tromello and Wade Maselich of Precision CrossFit in Agoura Hills, California, are your hosts. This is part of a series of videos so check for them in our Mobility Work Playlist on this channel.
Keep an eye out for more upcoming instructionals in the coming weeks or just click on the word tag Tromello Instructionals to pull them all up.
