This week, Dr Rick McAvoy's weekly tip is a unique method to improve hip flexibility:
In my practice I tend to work with quite a few athletes and just like most of our clients they need increased hip flexibility. A challenging way that I find is very beneficial to achieve this is a long lever rotary type exercise.
The client starts with a straight leg raise kick forward then rotates their body 180 degrees in the opposite direction while now maintaining hip extension and then steps backward.
They then raise the opposite leg into hip extension, rotate 180 degrees forward back into the straight leg raise position and then steps forward. This sequence is repeated.
I find this is a great exercise for hip flexibility but also for stability as well as for balance and coordination.
This exercise is difficult to master but I find that demonstrating from it from the deck and breaking down each component of the exercise tends to be very beneficial. Once the client gets the pattern down then increased speed as well as resistive equipment can be incorporated.
Dr. Rick McAvoy
A Unique Dynamic Hip Flexibility Exercise from Aquastrength on Vimeo.