Get Your Hips Moving – Here’s 3 Key Hip Stretches

The hip joint is structurally designed to move. Modern living, lack of movement, seated postures, these things over time severely restrict your hip joint motion.

Desk Jockeys, Older Guys, People that are always really stiff…. Work on this stuff.

Your hip needs to be able to move well, and if it doesn’t, other joints, tissues, tendons, or muscles have a higher chance of pain or injury.

You’ll also be really limited in your ability to move athletically. This is a problem for surfers / athletes because of the positions we want to get into while surfing.

Combinations of tissue release, specific stretching, and movement are what’s needed to help you improve, or regain lost motion. I can’t stress enough how important it is that your hips move well.

Tight Hips Can: limit ability to pop up quickly, cause knee or low back pain, reduce force absorption through turns, increase likelihood of lower body injury, restrict ability to rotate which reduces ability to turn quickly or powerfully…… you need your hips to move.

SURFER HIP STRETCHES – 3 KEY STRETCHES

• Quadricep / Hip Flexor Stretch
• 90/90 Hip Stretch
• Active Hamstring Stretch
• Tennis Ball / Lacrosse Ball Release to help release restricted tissue

Where are you most limited? Work on that. Consistently. If you’re at work, get up and stretch 2-3x’s per day. 

Spend 10 minutes at night while you’re in front of the TV and get to stretching, and roll around on a tennis ball. Do this, as your body very likely needs it.

Those are just 3 of the major muscle groups around the hip joint / pelvis. There’s also an assortment of ways you can stretch those muscles, but what’s generally necessary is that you know a stretch that targets a specific muscle or group, and then perform it correctly.  Find what muscles are your limiter.

Down the road you can get into the dynamic mobility stuff, and more dynamic movements, in fact it’s necessary.

At first, most people need to learn some basic stretches, and then do them consistently.

It’s your responsibility to keep yourself moving well.

Surfing is incredibly athletically demanding from a movement perspective. Keep your body moving so you can do what you want (surfing, running, moving, climbing, being an athletically involved human).

-cris

Improve the Way You Move
Eliminate Pain, Prevent Injury, and Move Better in the Water.