Improve your ‘get-up and go’ with healthy hips

Hip replacements are at an all-time high, even among those in their 40s. That’s bad news considering your hips play a major role in everything you do. They offer support between the lower and upper body, provide a structural mechanism for walking, bending and crouching.

But you may not spend enough time thinking about or developing your hip health. If you lift weights, ride a bike, jog or do squats, your hip muscles develop along with other muscle groups that you’re working. But unless you practice yoga, you probably don’t stretch your hips on a regular basis and problems like limited range of motion, pain and arthritis can occur. Opening up your hips with an easy hip exercise is your best bet for improving your hip health.

Mobilizing your hip joint is one of the most important aspects of your training. The hip joint takes a lot of pressure and load during activities like running, weight training, walking, rock climbing, martial arts, rowing. Thus, keeping the hips mobile, healthy and strong is important.

Often times when an athlete or active person feels tightness in their hip they will lift their knee up to hip level or above and move the hip joint around. Their hope is to open the joint or loosen the muscles around it. While this may be an intuitive movement, when the hips are already tight it can instead compress the joint, causing pain and inflammation.

Here in our video, trainer Alan Orr demonstrates two simple exercises to help open up the hip complex, reduce compression in the joint, help restore mobility and decrease discomfort.

Hip exercise 1 – Pointed toe leg rotations

Stand next to something that is stable for you to hold onto for support. Raise one leg off the ground, point your toes, and hold diagonally to the side. You will do a series of circles with your foot, first clockwise and then counter clockwise. Only do as many as feels comfortable before switching legs.

The key is to visualize your foot drawing circles. The foot acts like a pendulum weight that slightly pulls the hip a bit to open up space there. This allows a decompression of the hip joint and a more free flow of rotation.

Hip exercise 2 – Standing pelvic rotations

Take a medium lunge forward with one leg, keeping both feet firmly on the ground for stability. You will extend and rotate the hip of the rear leaning toward the front (counter clockwise). You can begin with small rotations and increase the circumference to a wider area as the hip warms up and opens its range of motion.

Rotate your upper body to move the joint. You can use this as a type of diagnostic exercise, feeling where there is tightness, or injury, that needs to be worked on more.

Give these two exercises a try with each workout or before and after each activity you enjoy. If you have tight hips with limited range of motion, doing these exercises 2 or 3 times a day can help!