Hip mobility is such an important part of feeling good and performing well in any athletic endeavor. The hips are also a common area of stiffness and discomfort. Hip mobility drills can be a great way to work on improving how your hips move and feel.

Stiff hips can be a contributor to things like hip pain, back pain, knee pain, decreased running efficiency/speed and less than optimal movement. Mobile and strong hips mean you can feel confident with all kinds of movements and skills like squatting, deadlifting, running, jumping, cutting and much more.

Basically, hip mobility is something we work on with the majority of my athletes. In this article, we’ll go over 4 great hip mobility drills that we use with our athletes and patients to improve mobility, stability and athletic performance.

How To Mobilize Your Hips

For our purposes today, we’re going to focus on four main movements of your hips. We find that working on these encompasses a lot of things we care about in the gym as well as on the field, court, ice, golf course etc. 

These four movements are:

• Hip flexion 

• Hip Extension

• Hip rotation

• Hip abduction 

Working on these four movements means you’ll feel better, be prepared to perform well and likely reduce your risk of having discomfort and injury in the first place.

Hip Flexion Mobility

To work on hip flexion, we’re going to use what we call the hip flexion lift off drill. 

This is a pretty simple drill but is important because it improves your ability to bring your knee to your chest without compensating with other hip or low back movements.

This is crucial for squatting, running/sprinting and landing. It is surprisingly difficult and effective to do drills like this at end range. This challenges both the mobility and stability of your hips in a position we need to be good at.

Hip Flexion Lift Off

• Stay as tall as you can.

• Don’t lean back or fling your leg up, move slowly and without momentum.

• Use upper body support at first if you need to.

• Use the highest box/step you can without needing to compensate.

Hip Extension Mobility

We’ve talked a lot about hip extension in the past. Hip extension mobility is one of the most important things to add into your training.

Hip extension is such a big part of being athletic and moving well. If an athlete can’t extend their hips well, it can lead to low back discomfort and poor form with squatting, deadlifting, stair climbing, step ups, running, throwing and much more.

At the very least, not being able to extend your hips means you’re leaving performance gains on the table. Your gluteus maximus (butt) is a big, powerful muscle that drives a lot of athletic movement. If you can’t extend your hips all the way, it’s like putting a governor on your car.

To work on hip extension, we’ll use one of our favorite drills, the couch stretch.

Couch Stretch

• Stay as active as you can. This shouldn’t be a passive, easy stretch. Own your position and really work to drive your hip forward by squeezing your butt.

• Don’t be a hero. Work within the limitations you have. We don’t want to reinforce bad habits/compensations by trying to force past our limits. 

• If this is too hard, revert to a classic hip flexor stretch. Check that out below. 

Hip Flexor Stretch

Hip Rotation Mobility

Even though so many athletic movements require good hip rotation mobility, many people don’t specifically work on it.

Think about sports like golf, hockey, baseball, softball, tennis, etc. These are obvious rotational sports and many athletes run into issues if they don’t move well through their hips. Even sports that don’t seem to have as much rotation like soccer, running, football, basketball and more still require good mobility in your low back and hips.

Plus, this drill just plain feels good. We find that many people with low back pain like this drill. This one is called the shin box. 

Shin Box

• Again, work within your current limitations. They will slowly improve over time. If you can’t do the top tier version of this drill that is fine. You’ll get there. If you could already move well in your hips, you probably wouldn’t need to do this. 

• Be sure to focus on both the front and back leg. We want to work on both hip external rotation (front leg) and internal rotation (back leg). 

Hip Abduction Mobility

The last movement we are going to focus on is hip abduction (leg moving away from midline).

We almost always use some form of this drill with athletes in sports like hockey, soccer and running because of the risk of groin strain. A big part of avoiding strains is making sure you have good range of motion. This can also help with mobility for squatting, sumo deadlift, single leg training and more.

We also find that working on this tends to be helpful for people with very tight hamstrings. The hamstrings and groin are pretty closely related so working on one tends to have some carry over to the other. This drill is called the adductor rock back.

Adductor Rock Back

• Your foot position doesn’t matter that much. Experiment and see what feels best for you.

• Be sure to keep your back flat as much as possible. You want to feel this stretch in your groin, not your back. 

• Move slowly and under control, don’t bounce. We want to spend some time at your end ranges to improve mobility. 

How To Get Started With Hip Mobility Drills

There you have it. Four of our favorite hip mobility drills for you to try out. 

Even if you think your hips move well, give these a try. These are great hip mobility drills that can expose any issues and blind spots so you can start working on them.

The hips are a hugely important part of athletics and just daily function. If you notice you have issues with any of these movements, start integrating these drills into your warmups and daily movement practices.

If you need help with hip pain, back pain or any other pain or injury limiting your performance in the gym or life, CONTACT US