Best Exercise in Ever: Seated Hip Rotations
Today I wanted to share a big bang for your buck hip mobility exercise that I’ve been using for myself and my clients for a few months since seeing it at the FRC certification at the Nike headquarters in December. For those who don’t know, this is one of the better mobility seminars I’ve ever taken, and it’s well worth the investment for any trainers looking to get more out of their mobility training.
The cool thing about this movement is you use as much range of motion as you can control, not merely what you can lean in to. There’s a big difference between grabbing a foot and pulling it into a specific position and using your own musculature to move it into the same position.
When doing this movement, a couple of key things to consider. First, you have to brace your abs and build tension gradually, not try to go for broke on the first instant of muscle contraction, or you’ll start getting life-changing muscle cramps through the lateral hip.
Second, breathe throughout the movement. Make it a point to not hold your breath or start shallow breathing, as that will limit the amount of motion you can get into the desired directions, and also cause you to cramp like no one’s business.
Third, try to go slowly and focus on getting as deep into the range of motion in each of the positions as possible versus just ripping through these. The goal is maximum usable range of motion, which by itself will warm up the muscles and get your heart rate up, so slow is better than fast.
Adjustments
Let’s say you’re not able to do the movement as outlined from the floor because you don’t have the requisite mobility to just start on the floor. You can do the same general movement while sitting on a foam pad to get you slightly off the floor and into less of an abducted position with the moving leg. Alternatively, you could do these while standing and starting with the foot and shin on a box or bench.
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There’s over 280 months of programming through 48 distinct semi-custom tracks to help you get to your goals, regardless of your gym access, schedule or movement capabilities.
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