3 Exercises to improve your hip stability
Hip stability and flexibility is the base of support we need to run, jump and perform everyday tasks with ease.
Strong, stable glutes ensure our biomechanical chain is in the best position to utilise our muscles when we run, jump and perform any lower and upper body movements. On the other hand, weak unstable hips lead to overload on other structures (a common one is your ITB (or outside of your leg)) in runners. Your body is one smart machine and will use other structures to compensate for weakness and allow you to continue to move. The problem with overloading a structure over and over again is it gets stronger (or breaks, depending on how long you load it for) leading to muscle inbalances and hip, knee, ankle and foot pain.
Try these three exercises below to activate your hip muscles, prevent injury and create a strong foundation for speed and power.
1. Glute Bridge
- Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.
- Tighten your buttock muscles and lift your hips up into the bridge position.
- Make sure you keep your hips up and level throughout the movement.
2. Clams
- Lie on your side with your feet, ankles and knees together.
- Bend the legs a little and tighten your core stability muscles.
- Keeping the feet together, lift the top knee up.
- Make sure you don’t roll your body back with the movement.
- Control the movement as you bring the knee back down to the starting position.
3. Squats
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.
- Engage your core muscles and gently squat down.
- As you squat, bend from your hips.
- Keep your back straight as you push your hips back and counterbalance by leaning your torso forwards.
- Do not allow your knees to travel too far forwards.
- Your weight should be on your heels, not your toes.
- It might help to image your are trying to sit down in a chair that is too far away from you.
- Tense your bottom muscles at the bottom of the squat and keep them tense as you straighten back up to the start position.
