The hips are such a vital area when it comes to everyday movements and athletics. That is why I wanted to devote an entire series on exploring related topics concerning maintaining optimal performance and resilience. Even if you think, “my hips are fine, I don’t need this,” please realize that the hips have a big impact on the knee, lower body mechanics and lumbar spine health. Therefore, I cannot overstate their importance!
In today’s video, and future videos, we will go more in-depth about self-assessment, flexibility, neuromuscular activation, strength vs. stability, and multi-planar movement. Be sure to click here first and watch ‘The Hips Don’t Lie Series’ Trailer. I hope you enjoy the content! And, please comment below with any questions or comments.
Hip neuromuscular activation is a topic I talk about a lot. Essentially, it’s the connection between the nervous system and a muscle or group of muscles.
What I notice at the hips is that people are strong. I see this by them deadlifting a lot of weight or pushing heavy sleds. But, when I put them on the table and manual muscle test gluteal strength (hip abduction/extension), they often cannot hold against my resistance. Why is that?
In that situation, instead of focusing more on increasing strength to withstand my resistance, I like to take more of a lower level, activation approach. This means teaching them how to fully connect with and feel the glutes firing during certain movements. This approach, followed by re-testing the weak test, typically yields a noticeable increase in strength. And, with what we know about strength, there is no way that happened in the quick, 60-90 second intervention we carried out.
Click the video below to learn 3 of my favorite drills to progressively improve hip neuromuscular activation:
Be sure to key an eye out for more videos in ‘The Hips Don’t Lie’ series.
By: Garrett McLaughlin, MS, ATC, CSCS, ART
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Tagged: gluteal activation, gluteal strength, hip activation, hip extension, hip-biased squats, hips don't lie series, injury prevention, lateral toe taps, neuromuscular activation, runner, running, sidelying hip abduction, static squat
So I always have this ‘aha’ moment when I watch your videos and realize this is the why behind what you have me do!
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Haha! Maybe I should have explained better in the first place!
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