How Can You Build Better Hips?
Why do my hips hurt? Can I improve my hip stability? How do I keep my knees from crashing in? How can I build hip control? We are going to tackle all those questions and more right now! :
Why movement SKILL matters
How improving CAPACITY can help you improve
The best hip exercise (according to my athletes) that you’ve likely never done
1. Train Movement Skill
Improvements in movement SKILL stem from rewiring your mind body connection. They help you USE your existing strength ( which is very very very important!!) but don’t build new strength and power.
People don’t come to me to learn exercises. They DO come to me for results. And results come from putting in the right work, in the right way, with a focus on consistency and quality.
To get you those results, we need to ensure that you learn the right STRATEGY to control your body parts, and build the CAPACITY to maintain it mile after mile, and game after game. What’s the difference? And how does this play out?
Here’s an example that we hear every day: A patient comes in with knee pain, and the PT correctly identifies a major factor in driving this pain is poor rotational control in the hips which is overloading the knee complex. The PT gets the patient on a program to steer their leg straight by focusing on the muscles that control hip rotation. This is typically done with body weight movements or light resistance bands. It doesn’t take a lot of load/resistance/challenge to improve the STRATEGY of how you move and stabilize your body! This scenario plays out in hundreds of thousands of clinics across the world every day. After a few weeks, the patient feels better, resumes running and yoga and talks to their PT about an exercise plan to stay healthy and move forward long term. That plan the PT writes has a lot of squats and deadlifts – which are GREAT exercises with so many benefits to moving in a linear way…..but…….what about improving the CAPACITY of the muscles that control hip rotation? (which is the patient’s main issue!)
2. Build Movement CAPACITY
My first car was a pile of junk my parents bought for the grand total of 250 dollars. It had seats, seat belts, steering wheel, and several pounds of mold. When you stepped on the gas pedal, it did go, but it limped off the line without much power or gusto. The engine just didn’t have much power….or CAPACITY. In fact, that old rust bucket lasted exactly 3 months before the engine blew up. Fast forward to today —> The car I currently drive has a lot more power. Same driver, same skills, but the car has more power - or capacity - to scoot off the line.
You can build capacity in in your body too (without buying a new car) by challenging the exercise. When we OVERload muscles in training we build capacity to help explode off the blocks, launch you faster down the field, and help you jump higher on the basketball court. The way to do this is to continually ramp UP the load on the muscles. Just like we do incrementally on squats or deadlifts.
One of my major pet peeves with the world of physical therapy and sport training in general these days is that we do all these creative exercises to build STRATEGY, but fail to connect the dots on building up the CAPACITY of those same muscles. I’m on a mission to connect those dots and to improve your body.
Take home: once you master the skill or technique, it’s time to LOAD the movement!
3. The BEST Hip Exercise
You’ve Never Done
Bringing it back to the hips: the Banded Tippy Twist (in the HIP section)
Thanks for making it this far on theory, let’s put this into action. The banded tippy twist is an exercise I’ve used successfully for decades to retrain closed chain control in the hips. Don’t take my word for it- talk to my athletes. They’ll tell you it just might be the best bang for the buck exercise for hip stability ever created. It trains your body to steer the pelvis above your thigh bone in a way that mimics what your body needs to do in sport. It builds STRATEGY. But we aren’t just going to stop at body weight. Sure…..everyone starts somewhere, and body weight may be where you need to be. But to close the loop and build capacity, we are going to LOAD those same muscles….and keep increasing the resistance on the band to build CAPACITY!
The focus is on loading the movement, and not balance, so use your free hand to stabilize your body on a wall or chair.
The hinge position is unique and important as it manipulates the geometry on the deep rotators of the hips to load them more effectively than a vertical trunk.
Use your MOBO with the fins in the OUTER slots. This twists your foot and ankle inward into eversion so that your body learns to move from the hips and stop compensating by shifting weight into your outer foot every time you twist your pelvis upward. Goal is even pressure across the foot.
the band wraps from your foot around the back side of your body. STRONGLY recommend watching the video here!
twist the hips INWARD and then back OUTWARD with the band loading your movement
Aim for 25 total reps per side
Check out the BIG power band in band in the pic to the left.
Use OVERload. Sure we’ll start with the resistance band your MOBO comes with. And that will be enough load to start. But at some point, you’ll need to start using a powerband in the 40, 80, or even 120 lbs load rating. Just like we add load onto the bar for squats, we progressively add load to the banded tippy twist. My athlete is crushing it with a 120 lb resistance band in the photo.
Quick note: I get messages from a LOT of MOBO users reporting that their MOBO really helps their hips too. WHY? You can’t train rotational stability in the foot without ALSO loading rotational stability in your hip at he same time. It’s just training a big spiral! Almost every exercise on your MOBO will improve your hip SKILL, but this Banded Tippy Twist also builds the CAPACITY we are looking for!