By David Drinks
In week 2 of our hip mobility series, we’re going to walk you through some self-assessments that you can do right now from home.
One of the biggest principles we believe in at the Med Gym is fitting the exercises to the individual, so that you’re doing exactly what you need to be doing to improve your limitations and work toward your goals.
The challenge for many people – and even trainers – when it comes to focusing the exercise routine on the needs of each individual, is the lack of good assessments or screens that point you in the right direction. Without assessing or screening your movement ability, and in this case your hip mobility, it’s just like throwing darts at a dart board and seeing what sticks.
Unfortunately, this approach to fitness is all too common. Many trainers give their clients generic exercise programs, or they give the same exercises to each individual, disregarding individual differences and needs.
At the same time, many individuals jump on the internet to find some exercises they think look good or might work well for them, but really have no way of knowing because they did not first assess their limitations.
The bottom line – if you’re not assessing, you’re guessing. You could stretch your hamstrings until the cows come home, but if you can already get your leg straight up to the ceiling when performing a straight leg raise (one of our assessments we’ll go over in a minute), you’re trying to stretch something that doesn’t need to be stretched.
That’s one thing I see too often. People aren’t working on their limitations, or the mobility drills that can really make a difference in how they move. They simply don’t know how to test it, and therefore they just do what everyone else is doing.
Well, that ends today!
As we start into this hip mobility series, our main focus is to provide you with some self-awareness of your mobility limitations and show you how that may be affecting your low back and knee health – amongst other things.
Today, we’ll go over some simple assessments that you can do by yourself from home to determine where you’re starting point is. After that, in each subsequent week, we’ll be taking you through a different mobility drill designed to improve the exact limitations you see in the self-assessments.
So, as you watch today’s video, follow along and test your hip mobility. If you find it hard to see where your limitations are while you’re doing the test, you can film yourself doing it or have a partner film you. You’ll be able to compare your movement to the criteria I give you for each test and see where you’re limited.
Once you know what the most limited range of motion is for you, you can watch for the mobility drills that focus on that movement and get to work on it!
Now, before we jump in, it’s important to say that none of these movements should create pain. If you have pain while attempting any assessments, let us know and we can point you in the right direction.
On the other hand, if they’re just challenging for you to do, that’s ok. As we move through the coming weeks of hip mobility drills, if you commit to practicing the drills we go over, you’ll make progress. You’ll be gaining better hip mobility and taking a big step forward in keeping your low back and knees healthy!
Check out the video below and follow along with the self-assessments. If you’d like to tell me how you did, or if you need help with them, feel free to email me at ddrinks@themedgym.com.
Good luck!
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Contact us here to talk about how we can help you develop an exercise routine that improves your hip mobility and so much more!