When it comes to improving hip mobility, static stretching can increase your risk of injury. Instead, use these three exercises to build strength safely.
Coach E from Precision Movement here. Today, I’m going to talk about what seems to be still a very controversial subject: the role of static stretching in improving flexibility, mobility, and movement.
In this article, I’m going to tell you why static stretching can lead to injury and show you three of the best hip mobility exercises to improve your range of motion and keep you pain-free.
Hip Mobility vs. Flexibility – What’s the Difference?
First, Let’s define the difference between flexibility and mobility.
Flexibility is your ability to be moved. For example, if I’m laying on my back and I’m pulling my knee to my chest, that’s an example of flexibility. So, in the hip flexion range of motion, how flexible am I able to get there?
Now, mobility is your ability to move, hence “mo”—movement ability. So, mobility is my ability to lift my leg up using my own muscular effort.
So, flexibility uses some kind of external force. In this case, I’m pulling my leg up with my arms. Whereas in mobility, I’m using internal force, the hip muscles, to lift my knee up toward my chest.
That’s the difference between flexibility and mobility. If you’re an active person who likes to move around or play sports, which one do you think is more important?
Mobility is definitely it.
How Does Hip Function Improve?
So, when it comes to improving mobility, we need to consider strength because strength is what allows you to enter and exit that range of motion.
If you have a passive range of motion or just joint flexibility, you don’t necessarily have the strength to move your body weight in and out of that range of motion.
Static stretching, which is a passive method, doesn’t improve your strength at these end ranges of motion. And it doesn’t improve your ability to enter and exit the range of motion.
Static stretching improves flexibility by increasing your tolerance to the sensation of stretching the muscles or even the ligaments. It can also decrease the neuromuscular tone of those muscles. So, if those muscles are chronically at a low level of contractions and thus limit your range of motion, it can shut those muscles off.
Conversely, if you shut those muscles off, especially before you need them in a sport or in the gym, you can increase your risk of injury because you don’t have the muscular force to do whatever it is that you need to do.
The real danger with static stretching is that if you do it and you actually increase your range of motion over time without the corresponding level of strength, you have an essentially weak range of motion because you’ve never built strength there. The weakness at the end of the range of motion is joint instability.
And that can lead to an increased risk of injury to ligaments or muscles.
Exercises for Lengthening & Strengthening Hip Muscles
To strengthen hip muscles without risk of injury, we like to use what we call ERE or End-Range-Expansion techniques.
The difference between ERE and contract-relax is that we have different levels: level one, which we’ll go through today, and level two, which involves a very specific method of executing the techniques that you’ll learn today.
If you want to follow along with the video, click here to watch The Best 3 Exercises to Increase Hip Mobility (Not Flexibility!) on YouTube.
Exercise 1: Supine Hamstring ERE
The first ERE technique I’m going to teach you is for the hamstrings. We’re going to lengthen the hamstrings, increase strength through the hip flexors and the hamstrings, and train lumbopelvic stability, which is really important for athletes.
You’re going to see how vastly different it is to do something like bending forward to touch your toes.
For the supine hamstring level 1 ERE. You lie on your back in the supine position.
The setup is important. Start in good posture. Bring your shoulder blades back together, and create a slight curve in your lumbar spine so you can fit your hand underneath your lower back.
- Flex the hip to about 90 degrees or even a little bit less
- Straighten the knee as much as you can, keeping the opposite leg straight
- Lift the leg up toward your head
- Once you reach your end range, ramp up the contraction, squeezing the quads, glutes, and hip flexors – ankle relaxed
- Hold for 10 – 15 seconds
- Gradually relax the muscles, but keep your leg in the air
- Grab you thigh
- Push your leg down into your hands
- Hold there for 10 – 15 seconds, knee straight and ankle relaxed
- Lift the leg back up to your end range
- Ramp up activation
- Hold for 10 – 15 seconds
- Lower your leg back to the floor
- Slowly relax everything
Perform 2 – 4 reps on each side.
Now, one key is to maintain even left-right pressure underneath the pelvis on the ground. Keep the ankle relaxed and breathe naturally.
If you can’t grab your thigh, use a belt or a rope or something, a pair of pants, whatever you can.
That’s the Supine Hamstring Level 1 ERE sequence.
You can see how different it is from a typically static stretch.
Exercise 2: Frog Level 1 ERE
Next, we’re doing the Frog Level 1 ERE.
This one is the frog position – the frog stretch – something you’ve probably seen or done. But again, you’re going to learn how different this technique is, and if you do it and follow along with it for a few weeks, a few sessions, you’re going to feel the difference.
First up, position.
Get into the frog position. But we’re not going to just get as wide as we can and settle into it. We’ve got to make sure we have a little bit of anterior pelvis tilt, neutral lumbar spine, and good posture. Go as far as you can with your knees apart while maintaining that posture. Put your feet out to the side if you can – external rotation of the tibia there.
Strong elbows. Strong support arms. Chest is up. Get those on thoracic multifidi on. (Don’t worry about that if you aren’t familiar with that muscle set; that’s a nod to my trainer friends.)
Now that you’re in position let’s go:
- Squeeze your knees together; think of pinching the mat/rug/floor together while maintaining good posture
- Ramp up the activation until it’s at a max level that you feel is safe
- Hold at max level for 10 – 15 seconds
- Gradually relax
- Lift your knees slightly, keeping the side of your feet grounded
- Spread your knees apart as far as you can, squeezing your butt/pelvic floor muscles
- Hold for 10 – 15 seconds
- Slowly relax
- Squeeze your knees together into the mat again, ramp up activation
- Hold for 10 – 15 seconds
- Relax
Perform 2 – 4 reps.
When your finished, bring your feet in, get up on your toes under control, and push back to a sitting/kneeling/neutral position. You’re teaching your body the movement patterns of getting back into the neutral position.
Control your way in. Control your way out.
Stay conscious of your posture the whole time. Your lower back should be relaxed, and breathe throughout.
You may also discover this can be a tough workout for your arms.
There you have the Frog Level 1 ERE.
Exercise 3: Side-Lying Hip Extension Level 1
The last of the techniques I want to share with you today is the Side-Lying Hip Extension Level 1 ERE.
This exercise lengthens the hip flexors. It works the hip flexors and extensors but in the extended range of motion or the lengthened hip flexor range of motion.
We worked these muscles in the Supine Hamstring Level 1 ERE but in the flexed hip position. So we’re working both ends of the range of motion: full hip flexion and full hip extension, working both of the muscles that take you in and out of those ranges of motion.
That’s how we’re going to build mobility that lasts.
For this technique, you’ll be lying on your side, working the back leg. Get into the best posture you can, relax your neck, and then actively bring your bottom leg back without hyperextending the lumbar spine. You’re not arching, just bringing it back. The knee is relaxed here actively into your end range of motion.
- Activate the hip extensors—glutes—and try to drive your foot back toward a wall behind you
- Ramp up activation as strongly as you can into your end range
- Hold for 10 – 15 seconds
- Place your opposite heel on your thigh and drive your knee into your foot
- Hold for 10 – 15 seconds
- Activate the hip extensors again and drive back into the end range
- Hold for 10 – 15 seconds
- Slowly relax
Perform 2 – 4 reps.
You can reach behind you to tap your glutes to double-check they’re activated. Breathe throughout and keep your lower back relaxed.
That is a Side-Lying Hip Extension Level 1 ERE. That is, in my opinion, a far superior exercise to lengthening the hip flexors because we’re lengthening them and building strength in them. So you’re getting kind of a double effect when you do this exercise versus a standard gravity-based lunge stretch. You can easily irritate the tissues this way.
The Next Steps to Strong, Pain-Free Hips
So, can you pick out some of these here with the exercises?
- Focus on alignment and posture.
- Lots of muscle activation, lots of contraction, and building strength.
- Breathing. Always breathe throughout. You’re teaching your brain to adopt these movement patterns.
- Lumbopelvic stability.
I mentioned lumbopelvic stability in all three exercises, and this is especially important for all you athletes out there. If you want to be able to move in your sport, whether it’s tennis, hockey, baseball, soccer, basketball, or whatever it is, you need a good, stable lumbar spine and pelvis. You need to be able to drive off the ground with lots of force without trashing your low back because it’s unstable.
I hope you enjoyed those exercises. I hope you learned something new today. And I hope you take it away and do them and then feel the benefits.
We have a couple more things you can check out. We have a couple of articles with exercises for the hips that you should definitely check into.
Hip Mobility and Strength Exercises to Support the Kinetic Chain – Knee and back pain may share a common cause – weak, tight hips. Learn a simple mobility and strength exercise to ease pain.
4 Hip Mobility Moves to Do When Sitting – If you’re a desk worker and your everyday job is affecting your hip mobility, you should try these simple moves that you can do when you’re sitting.
You definitely need to check this out. It’s the ROM coach app, and inside is the hip mobility level one ERE routine. It has some additional exercises that work synergistically with these exercises to get you the best results possible.
