Mobilizing the Hips
Now let's dive into the hips! At Primal Mobility, we like to place a lot of our attention on what we call the Primal Big 3. These are the three main areas that have the biggest play on how the rest of the body moves. One of the top three is the hips, as it has a large impact on the movement of the knees, as well as the low back - which are both very important components of the squat.
Strong and healthy hips are vastly important for long-term movement functionality across the body, and considering that we’re seeing the pain in this area for our clients, it’s important that we help offer a solid solution to maintain that movement health. Let’s have a look at two common approaches to how most coaches will address these areas and why this is generally an incomplete solution.
Dynamic Stretching
Dynamic stretching simply refers to stretching with movement. More specifically, moving in and out of various deep ranges of motion with a particular intent. This is one of my personal favourite approaches to working on ROM, as it can be very calm and gentle, or aggressive and intense. How we use it is completely up to us. While dynamic stretching is a beauty of a technique, it’s often used in a very passive technique. Again, our main goal is to eventually foster strength within the deep ranges of motion, and dynamic stretching won’t get us to that destination on its own.
Foam Rolling
If you’ve been around Primal Mobility for any longer than this article alone, you already know how I feel about the use of foam rolling and how it pertains to mobility work. Most coaches will have their clients sit on a foam roller or lacrosse ball or grab a barbell and smash the shit out of their quads with it and call it a day. They’ll glorify all the pain and discomfort associated with that and often throw a video of it up in their Instagram stories with a smiling devil emoji (😈) like it’s a cool thing to do.
Listen, there’s a time and place for foam rolling. It certainly has its benefits (like reducing the perception of pain and increasing the range of motion through the calming of the nervous system), but those benefits are temporary and incredibly short-lived.
If you’re putting your clients on a foam roller, just know that there's so much more than that that should go into a mobility protocol if you want real results. Foam rolling just ain't it, fam.
Hip Mobility Drills
Training our hip mobility is a truly challenging feat. Considering it hosts some of our largest musculature (the glutes) and has four main functions that are crucial for daily performance in life and fitness, we’ll often have to challenge the hips with high intensity for true mobility gains to be developed. Throwing a few hip thrusts at your client isn't going to do it.
Let’s have a look at 3 of the most common stretches that coaches will program and 3 exercises we suggest as an alternative.
Common "Mobility Drills":
Pigeon stretch
The pigeon (or the “pidge,” as I like to call it because shortening every word in my vocabulary is fun and makes my wife roll her eyes) is probably the most common way for clients to address their hips and glutes.
The way it works is that it drives the hip into external rotation and lengthens the glutes. This offers a nice gentle (or painfully intense if you’re experiencing any glute DOMS) stretch, which generally helps release any current tension in the hip.
Something to understand is that although the Pigeon Stretch has its wide array of benefits and can be used in so many ways, it often just addresses the symptom in a temporary way - which is tight hips/glutes. Again, passive techniques generally offer a quick reaction from the body and create instant relief of tension, but without the application of stability, movement control, or strength, the results are very short-lived.
90/90 stretch
The 90/90 stretch is one of my favourites. The reason I love it so much is because it places the hips in both internal and external rotation. Most clients will spend a lot of their time in external rotation as it’s a simpler function to address (again, think about the pigeon stretch and how that’s generally everyone's go-to), but I’m mostly focused on how they are finally getting into the internal rotation - which is much rarer.
People like to spend the majority of their time addressing their external hip rotation because it’s easier, but that’s often not what needs to be improved (more than 90% of clients that come to Primal Mobility with hip and low back pain will have a weakness or deficiency of some kind in their hip internal rotation). Instead, as the coach, help the client place more of their focus on the hip that is in internal rotation while they’re playing in the 90/90 stretch. This is where the client truly needs to spend more of their attention to help them move through the squat effectively.
Frog stretch
Ahhh, the good ole’ frog stretch. The yoga world really loves to feel like animals with the way they’re naming these positions. I dig it, though.
The frog position is amazing and can truly be a great opportunity to train internal hip rotation - which, as you already know, it’s fuc*ing important. At Primal, we have over 6 variations of active frog exercises to help train the adductors in length and the internal rotators of the hip. Again, while most clients will sit in the frog position for minutes without moving, help them genuinely build strength within their hips by suggesting some active components such as squeezing the floor with their knees and lifting their feet off the ground. You’ll be surprised at how challenging this is, how much your clients' hips might cramp as a result of their weaknesses in hip IR, and how incredible the hips feel afterward (and possibly some DOMS the following day).
Our Recommended Hip Mobility Drills:
Pigeon Holds
As mentioned above, we want to chase strength as our ultimate goal. Ideally, we can create long-term solutions for our clients by applying techniques that have a strong influence over the nervous system and can help calm the stretch reflex in a way that helps the client reduce their hip pain for good.
This variation will lengthen the hips and force the engagement within that stretched position to foster strength and finally show the nervous system that your client can manage those deep ranges of motion safely.
90/90 Internal Presses
The clients love this one. It’s generally an “easy” exercise to begin applying active components to the 90/90 position. When using this technique, be sure that your clients are truly within a deep, internally rotated position by keeping the glutes to the floor and the belly button pointed toward the back knee. From there, we can slowly ramp up the intensity of the contractions as the client's hips start to accept the position more and more.
Frog Squats
I’m mostly choosing this exercise because it’s fun and cool, and I wanted to impress you with a unique mobility exercise that will excite your clients. There are so many amazing variations to the frog stretch position, but this is a great place to start with training hip IR and working on the adductors/groin as well.
Table Of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Identifying the Causes of hip pain while Squatting
Chapter 2: Assessing movement patterns
Chapter 3: Strengthening The Hip Flexors
Chapter 4: Progressing Your Training Program
Chapter 5: Mobilizing The Hips
Chapter 6: Implementing a Comprehensive Mobility Plan
Chapter 7: FAQs
Chapter 8: Client Pain, Limitations & Mobility Coaching
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