By Pat Sheils, B.S. Exercise Science | Fitness Trainer Edina MN
Howdy. Been a while since I’ve written anything so giving this a whirl to see I still know how to write and not just count to 10. Now, diving into the topic at hand: why should you start training your hip flexors? I know that this is going to go against what you may have heard, and yes, stretching is still important for that area of your hips. If you need a refresher on this, check the previous blog I wrote about why you need to stretch the hips (insert here).
Before I get into the whole reason for strengthening the hip flexors and the importance of this, I want to give a little backstory for you. I am a big “non runner” type of guy. I like to lift heavy and run rarely. Now this doesn’t mean never, and in the last year I have been working sprints back into my workout. Allows me to hit cardio in the same way I hit the weights, no more than 30 seconds at a time. Now since I hadn’t run in a few years, I decided the best way to start was to just run and see how it felt (bad idea). Needless to say, it felt like I was running in knee deep water and after some tinkering around I determined that it was because of my lack of knee drive that was limiting my running. This led to me developing a program to build up my ability to run again, and that is what I plan to share with you.
Now to understand more of why we strengthen, we need to understand exactly what these muscles are doing and how that relates to running. Ultimately, the hip flexors are going to do exactly what the name implies and that is to flex your leg at the hip (think of a high knee motion). Why does this matter to you? Because that is exactly what gets your foot in front of you to be able to take your next step. For someone that doesn’t have the strongest of flexors, when these muscles wear out, the responsibility for movement is going to start to transfer to the lower back. In the same way you can get back pain because your hips are tight, you can also get back pain because the hips can’t do their job, and as that chain flows this leads to your glutes and hamstrings not activating to drive you forward. After all is said and done, you just used your lower back to try and do the work of 3 muscle groups. No Bueno.
To help improve your knee drive and to make sure those hammies are working the way they should, you want to start at the basics of hip flexor strength. That is going to be a Single Leg High Knee Hold. This is the perfect exercise to begin building the foundation of your hip flexor training, as well as reprogramming your running to match.
- To start off, you want to make sure that you are rock solid in your plant leg (the one you balance on). To do this, focus on flexing and squeezing all the muscles in that leg. Glutes, quads, hamstrings, calf, and foot.
- Lift the other leg into a high knee position by squeezing through the hip. Make sure you stop at a 90 degree angle, and you want your knee and ankle to be at 90 degrees as well.
- Keep the core braced. This will help to better stabilize the hips, and to make sure you are better balanced.
This exercise is going to help with keying in on making sure that your posterior chain is better activated when you are getting knee drive and cycling the legs through on your run. As I said before, if you have a bad working relationship with your hips and your hams/glutes, your back is going to want to take over to make up the difference. So this will help to prevent that from happening in the future.
The next exercise is going to be a continuation of the High Knee Hold. This one is the Single Leg Sprinter RDL. I use this one to continue to strengthen the relationship between hips and glutes, and to continue to improve the running mechanics. This exercise, when done correctly, is going to torch your hams/glutes while also really challenging the balance. The trick with this one is in the back leg. We are going to keep it active and bent at 90 degrees to make sure that it is also active in the bottom position. By squeezing the back leg like a hamstring curl, we make sure that the hips stay lined up in a forward position (not twisted to the side at all) and we also get much more activation in the glute medius which is going to allow you to build up the powerful driver of your posterior chain. Here’s how you want to perform this one:
- Start by getting into the Single Leg High Knee. Make sure to be fully engaged in the plant leg when at the top.
- Begin to lower down following the regular mechanics you would with any other Single Leg RDL. As you are going down, drive your lifted leg behind you, focusing on moving through the glute like a glute kick back.
- Make sure with the back leg, you squeeze the hamstring and the glute. This will help to better align the hips. Pay attention to the leg and make sure it isn’t leaning to the inside (means the hips are opening up. Don’t want that)
- When it’s time to come back up, drive the back leg into the high knee position and make sure you are rock solid in balance before the next rep.
This exercise is meant to help develop the power relationship between knee drive and posterior chain activation. This will be a big reason why you will be able to power yourself and have greater leg and knee drive when you run. The real key here is to take it slow. Take 3-5 seconds lowering into the bottom and 3-5 seconds holding at the bottom. The drive up should be quick but in control. This would be the one exercise that I would say ultimately helped me get back into sprinting, and helps my running clients the most.
The last big movement that we will talk about is the Sprinter Single Leg Glute Bridge. This is similar to the Sprinter RLD, but its focus is more in hammering the glutes instead of hams & glutes together. This will ultimately help maximize your glute drive for running and sprinting, and is going to overall improve many of your single leg exercises that you will do. Here is the keys to this one:
- Set up on a foam box or a bench that is roughly 20-24 inches off the ground. Make sure that your Shoulder Blades are above the edge of the surface (think like you are chilling in a hot tub.
- Start with one leg bent, and the other straight out in front. Butt is off the ground and core is tight to make sure there is no help from the midsection. Work on keeping the hips even and not tilting to either side.
- Drive the hips up to full extension, and drive the leg that was straight into the high knee position. This is to keep the hips lined up, and to build the leg drive relationship.
- Return to start position, with the planted leg bent and the drive leg straight out.
This will be a tough exercise, and will require a lot of coordination on your part to complete. As you get better at this, you will notice in your runs that you will be driving from the glutes and hamstrings much more efficiently. For me, I was no longer feeling like I was running in water. I also felt more powerful in my leg drive and started to feel explosive again. For distance runners, again you should feel that as you get tired you aren’t feeling like your back is doing the work anymore. Also, as you get stronger in this, add in the arm motion as well for an added challenge.
The last exercise we will touch on is the only weighted exercise in this blog. It is the Kettlebell Weighted Knee Drive. This is to add resistance to the knee drive motion and to actually work the hip flexor muscles in a more traditional strength training way. This is meant to purely strength the hip flexors and to make them stronger. Here is how it goes:
- Set up a bench in an area where you will be able to keep a hand on something to keep balance. You want the leg with the KB to be hanging off the bench, and ultimately it is the only thing we want to focus on.
- Hook the handle of the KB onto your foot that is off the bench. Make sure it is secure and not moving around much.
- WIth your plant leg fully engaged, drive the KB leg up into a high knee position. Control the weight on the way back down to maximize the work for the leg
This exercise is all about helping to build the pure strength and power for your hip flexors. This is also last, because the 3 exercises before should be more or less mastered before you start to do this one. Since the hip flexors are a small group of muscles, the last thing you want to do is overwork them and injure yourself. So this should be done once you feel you have full control of the first three exercises. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the same goes for the strength in your muscles.
All in all, adding these four exercises into your normal exercise routine is going to go a long ways for you. The ultimate goal here is to increase the performance of your running. So make sure that you have that in mind as you are working through these. Take special care to make sure you are aligned as perfectly as you can be. The best advice I can give is that if you tighten up all the muscles you don’t plan to work, you will perform much better in these movements. These are going to improve your running mechanics in a great way, so you don’t want to be out of position while doing them. Below is an example of how to work them into a workout:
Day 1
Warm Up: Single Leg High Knee Balance (2x20sec Each Leg)
1a) Barbell Back Squat (4×10)
1b) Single Leg Sprinter RDL (4×5 Each Leg.)
3 seconds down, 3 second pause, quick up
1c) Kneeling Single Arm Cable Row (3×12 Each Arm)
2a) Push Ups (3×10-12)
2b) Lat Pull Down (3×10-12)
2c) Calf Raise (3×15)
Day 2
Warm Up: Single Leg High Knee Balance (2x20sec Each Leg)
1a) DB Seated Shoulder Press (4×8-10)
1b) Single Leg Sprinter Glute Bridge (4×6-8 Each)
1c) KB Swings (3×15)
2a) DB Reverse Lunge w/Knee Drive (3×10 Each)
2b) Seated Cable Row (3×15)
2c) Hanging Leg Raises (3×8-10)
If you’re looking for a great personal trainer near Edina MN, then don’t hesitate to contact your local personal trainers at 3CLICK Fitness today!