Hip Health: Strength & Mobility at LIFT Fitness & Physiotherapy

In order for your trainer to create the BEST program for your specific needs, it is super helpful for us to know how to train your hips rather than discovering weaknesses or imbalances throughout each session.

Building Healthy Hips

Mobility: pre- exercise

Strengthening

Stretching: post-exercise

When training your hips don’t forget that most strength exercises can be done unilaterally which means one or single leg. This will help greatly with achieving greater hip stability as well as balancing out your body from side to side. Often, we have a dominant side. Think of the hip that stabilizes you while you kick a ball for example, compared to leg that actually kicks the ball.

If you were to try to balance on one foot, I bet the leg that kicks the ball won’t be able to balance you for as long. This is where those unilateral movements come in as they allow each joint to work independently of the other. Think of a deadlift for example, if one side is stronger or more stable than it may take more of the load when you perform a deadlift. If you were to do a single leg RDL; however, each hip has to take the load on its own without allowing for your stronger side to compensate.

Cossack Squat

Note - Even with all the information above we are just scratching the surface of building healthy hips, other modalities such as foam rolling, and seeking out professionals such as physiotherapist or chiropractors can also make huge impacts on our overall hip function.

*I use the term exercise because these movements can be beneficial before or after a workout, a hockey game, a run and many other forms of exercise besides your typical gym sesh.