Swing those Hips!

Your hip is a fundamental part of your body. It's what connects your entire leg to the rest of your body, the joint is called the Acetabulofemoral joint, but the name isn't what's most important. What is important is the role the hip plays in your physique and performance. The Quadriceps, Hamstrings and Glutes all connect to the body at the  Acetabulofemoral joint along with another muscle more commonly known as a hip flexor, whose actual name is the Iliopsoas. Like its more common name suggests, the hip flexor flexes the hips forward causing a forward pelvic tilt, and helps to bring the femur into flexion (raising the leg straight out in front of the torso), while the Glutes cause hip extension causing your butt to stick back, and also pulling the lehg to pull back from flexion (as in a stride in a sprint or lunge, or just walking).
Now what does that mean for you? From a physique aesthetic standpoint, it means that stimulation of these muscles allow for those lines in your hips to become more prominent and for you to have a tighter butt. From an athletic performance standpoint, it means that strong glutes and hip flexors will create a large portion of your lower body's power when running, jumping, squatting, or any other movement using your lower half, and make you a better, faster athlete, or simply a more efficient member of the workforce or parent. Strong, stable hips are the foundation of most everything we do each day with our bodies. (yes, that's why you have to use the "cheese grater" week after week...)
Strengthening the hips is a critical part of improving one's physique and performance in both the gym setting, and in everyday life, but there exists a catch-22 situation here. The problem being that we need to keep the muscles surrounding the hips strong, but also as limber as possible. If the gym were the only factor at play here, that task would be simple enough - simply balance out exercises and stretches to prevent excessive shortening of one muscle and keep everything in balance. BUT, one of the most common problems that exists in the modern American population is an excessive shortening and tightening of the hip flexors due to long periods spent in flexion from desk work and driving. The longer one sits, the tighter those muscles become. This pulls the pelvis out of alignment and inhibits mobility.
Tight hips make it difficult to walk, or worse, more difficult to squat or lunge or deadlift! So to keep from having tight hips you need to stretch. A sprinters stance stretch allows for a deep stretch of your hip flexors, and can help keep them from overtightening. This stretch can, and should, be performed often, and preferably throughout the day if one is prone to sitting in a desk chair and/or car. Perform the stretch slowly and with a static hold, stretching long enough to feel the muscle relax, and only to the point of loosening, not pain. Aside from improving posture and performance, this stretch can often relieve a lot of low back pain. The hip flexors actually wrap around the body from the inside of the femur, all the way around the hip into the middle of the low back. When they are tight, the pulling on the low back is not a back injury or anything to do with the spinal erectors themselves, but rather a simple tension from the hip flexors that is easily remedied.


Conversely, one also needs to keep the opposing muscles, the Glutes, loosened to keep the hips in balance and mobile. To stretch the Glutes, try lying on your back with your hand under your knee pulling your knee into your chest for a deep glute stretch.
 
Aside from these simple stretches, one can incorporate foam rolling, deep squatting and lunging, massage, and other soft tissue and mobility work to ensure functional hips for a lifetime of healthy posture and good performance. So in the words of a great man, Squat (deadlift or lunge) better! And be sure that your glute and hip flexors are loose so you can!

-Co-authored by Steve Decker and Jack Lazarus