Hip Extension - Make It Your Dominant Action

As appeared at the sportsvault.com.au:

If one was to interview 100 athletes and asked them what would they like more of and what would they like less of, I bet that 2 of the most popular answers would be to increase speed and to have less lower back pain.

What if I told you that there’s 1 specific movement that you’re not training that could make both of these goals a reality?

Enter Hip Extension.

What Is It?

Hip Extension is where the leg goes back behind the midline of the body as demonstrated in this video at 16secs.

It us performed primarily by the glute maximus and secondary by the adductor magnus with the hamstrings providing some supplementary assistance.

Optimally you should be able to achieve 10 degrees range of motion without compensating through the lumbar spine or hamstrings.

What Hip Extension Will Do For You?

All sprinters know the importance of training hip extension to improve their sprinting times and providing that hip extension is the basic push off movement at the completion of each step, rightly so.

Specifically it gives you great propulsion out of the blocks by providing you with a long first step at the start of a sprint.

                                        

Maximum speed, which generally kicks in at 30m of any sprint, is also enhanced as the posterior chain (which produces hip extension) acts as the prime mover, taking over the quadriceps.

In a postural sense, a well developed hip extension movement and thus, well developed glute muscles will also bring your hips out of excessive anterior tilt, decreasing lower back stress.

Why Don’t I Have Adequate Hip Extension?

Like all body movements, hip extension has its agonist (glutes) and antagonist (quadriceps, hip flexors).

When one side is stronger than the other side then the tug of war is being pulled one way more than the other, in this case the hips (pelvis) are being pulled up and backwards by the erector spinae and down and forwards by the hip flexors and quadriceps.

The glutes are now in a constant lengthened and stretched position which in turn makes it a weak muscle (think of the elastic band in your pj’s that all worn and loose).

To add even more dysfunction onto the pile, as technology continues to take over the world, so does sitting which reinforces tight quadriceps and hip flexors.

So the main problems associated with a lack of hip extension range of motion and strength is:

• Inhibited glutes
• Tight hip flexors, quadriceps, adductors, illiotibial band/tensor fasciae latae
• All resulting in excessive pelvic tilt

What Do I Do Then?

Before each session you will need to inhibit and lengthen your tight muscles (itb/tfl, hip flexors, quadriceps, hamstrings, adductors). Myofascial release techniques are a great choice here such as manual massage, self massage, foam rolling, tennis balls along with any form of stretching you’d like to do but as static stretching has the greatest effect on decreasing muscle force production, it’s a pretty good choice.

Immediately after you’ve inhibited the tight muscles you need to activate the dormant/weak muscles (glutes). This can be done with single leg prone hip extensions, glute bridges from an elevated surface (to decrease hamstring involvement), bird dogs, wall marches etc. 

Now that you have those glutes ready to work, it’s time to strengthen them through deadlifts variations, squat variations, single leg lunge and step up variations as well as straight leg hip extensions, weighted hip thrust, pendulums, reverse hyperextensions and glute ham raises. 

To really get hip extension to work for you in the sports arena it’s critical that you take it 1 step further using sled push drags then head off to the track and do some straight leg bounds, high knee skips and various sprint starts and traditional sprints.

Programming

To program hip extension simply choose 1 activation exercise, 1 strength exercise and 1 assistance exercise and do them 2 – 3 times a week. If you’re an athlete then you should hot the track 1 – 2 per week as well or incorporate them into your team training sessions.

Just make sure to finish each exercise with full extension of the ankle, knee and hip which is called triple extension. For additional hip extension work you can use a split stance on your upper body exercises, squeezing the trail leg, alternating legs each set. If you have a one side weaker than the other then it is critical that you do MORE for that side using an imbalanced training approach. The weak side won’t catch up doing the same amount of work as the other side.

Just make sure that whenever you are training hip extension that you don’t move yourself into lumbar spine hyperextension, which can actually cause facet damage to the spine.

I hope you enjoyed and get a lot out of this focus on hip extension and let me know any thoughts or questions you have to make you a better athlete.