039 : 011 Strength (hips)

Working the hips is hard for most people to comprehend. It is most often a side effect of a movement that is ab or quad dominant, and after those go, the stress affects the hip flexor. Training the hip as a consequence or sidecar is not a good approach. You could do what some have tried to do and entice hip and glute training by thinking of a narrow movement in which to express more load like a hip thrust or something, but that also doesn’t have the best results.

Instead, try and move your hip (using a CAR for example) and find the range that it is missing. Then try to expand that range, and then try loading that range. Perhaps this isn’t all in one session—especially if it is our first time training hips directly—but eventually, it will be. We are trying to find limitations in the hips and that is most obviously in range first and foremost. The funny part about strengthening the hip is that simply becoming aware of a limitation can change the limitation. The “awareness” we are talking about is a feeling within the joint and all the surrounding tissues. the most common reaction we get from simply showing someone a CAR is that they have never felt their hip “in that way.” All that says to me is that there is not yet a developed sense of feedback in certain areas. While people are busy thinking that results come from being especially sore from specific training (which is technically incorrect), they miss the bigger picture of just becoming more aware. Spending their time in the gym just trying stuff is more productive when the outcome is a better sense of their limitations.

Work:

15x Hip CARs on each side

3 rounds of PAIL/RAIL

-Hip Internal rotation

-Hip External rotation

-Hip Extension

3x10 cabled or banded take-offs from 90/90 (imagine. pigeon squat but connect a band or cable around the femur and attach it behind you)

3x6-10 Tempo Gorilla 1 1/4 squats with sandbag

do 10-15x banded hip abductions between on each side

Finisher

Seated pike leg lift till failure. (this fits in the “hovers” category. Hand placement is key. Blocking the spine to put pressure on the hip flexor is what makes or breaks this exercise. The closer the hands are to the feet, the more compressed the position and the more difficult it is the raise the foot off the ground.