Hip Mobility

Injuries in the lower limb are sometimes caused not by where the pain is. If you think about the injury not coming from where the pain is, then the injury is going to come from somewhere else. For example, if you are having restricted mobility in your hip joint it will impact your knee, ankle, and foot. And it will put pressure on other areas. Reduced hip mobility can cause plantar fasciitis, flat feet, bow leg, knock knees, Achilles Tendinopathy, or might have stress fracture in the foot or into the hip, etc.

Effect of decreased Hip mobility

If you lack mobility in your hip joints and it is very difficult to notice. And then you start to lose your strength and your power from your glutes. Losing strength and power from your glutes means you have to try to get that strength from somewhere else and if you are a runner and haven’t got strength at glutes to give you that explosive power to push off or that endurance in your glutes to be using them, you will start using other areas which will often be the calf or your hamstring and we can get some Tendinopathy developing, joint misalignment, muscle imbalance, and much more difficulties.

If you lose mobility into your hip joint then you are not going to be shock absorbing with your glutes, and if you don’t shock absorb with your glutes then you are going to be putting out pressure into other areas when you land, and often that could something which is loading your feet to start to giving thing like stress fractures.

So getting hip mobility is really important, it will allow the force to move up the kinetic chain when you are running the hip mobility will allow you to get your force coming through your glutes for your power, and also if you are landing your shock absorption.

Better hip mobility has the following benefits it improves strength in your hip and helps alleviate pain and irritation. Improve athletics performance. Improve the quality of life. It gives you the speed to run and the power to jump. Helps you to lift properly. Better hip mobility gives greater ROM. Improved circulation. Decreased risk of injury. Reduced muscle tension and soreness. Improved posture. Improve movement efficiency, etc.

Some of the effective exercises are like lying hip rotations. Piriformis stretching. Butterfly stretching. Frog stretching. Kneeling lunges. Squatting in internal rotation or hip. Cossack squats, etc.