Stats shows that the majority of us will experience back pain at some point in our life. The rates of knee injuries are pushing us towards the same trend. Are we all falling, crashing into others or are we playing a sport that has a high degree of collisions to cause all these injuries and pain? No, because from the work I do with my clients on a weekly basis shows me that tight or painful hips and knees often have one major factor in common and that’s tight hips.

What I want to present here is a simple way to –

1. Asses where your hip mobility is currently at
2. How to fix it
3. Other factors that help to maintain the progress you’ve made

Of course there are many other factors outside of what I will discuss here that can contribute to hip pain e.g. medical condition, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, how your body is set up structurally from birth etc but overall this article when followed will allow you to vastly improve your mobility quickly and target an area that so many people have issues with. Again, if necessary make sure you have your doctor's ok before you try these.

Step 1 – Assessing mobility

Here are two simple ways in which you can assess your hip mobility.

Can you move from sitting on the ground to standing WITHOUT using your hands to assist you?  This might seem simple enough but many of you will struggle with this due to a lack of both base leg/hip strength and your ability to internally and externally rotate the hips.       

AND Can you pass these four simple mobility tests?  Two of them directly relate to the hips – Couch stretch with shin against the wall and the Pigeon stretch with the shin going straight across the body while lying face down on the floor. Again, if you have difficulty passing these tests then you need to get cracking on to step 2 next.

Step 2 – Fixing your hip mobility

Using foam rolling or soft tissue tools, such as, a hard rubber ball, can and are useful to break down adhesion’s and scar tissue that limits mobility but if this is a constant issue then you need to get yourself off to a physical therapist that can help you get to the point where you can self maintain your muscle tissue quality. I like .

You can use some tools like a a foam roll to help with massaging out the thighs, glutes and hamstrings which all directly relate to hip mobility but overall the missing link for most people is that they simply need to do targeted mobility work more often and ideally daily.

Here are my favorite ways to stretch and mobilize the hips. Please keep in mind that stretching is NOT a passive activity that you simply just stay in and chill. It’s a very active process so if you’re not getting better then it’s likely you simply are not stretching with intent i.e. you’re not 100% focused on getting deeper into the stretch.

You will also hear me mention that you should be doing contractions during the stretches and this is vital if you want to work deeper into each stretch as we’re trying to send a neurological signal to the brain to calm the receptors in our muscles from firing so hard and allow us to work lower into each stretch.

Pick 2-3 in each session and rotate through them for a few minutes at a time. Find the ones that work best for your body but make sure you add them into your daily routine - even if you are normally pretty sedentary, you will feel and move much better.

Step 3 – Keeping that improved hip mobility

Now the hips are feeling a bit more free what you also need to focus on is doing some work for the muscles around the hips and core that need to be strengthened so as to keep the hips in the position you want.

For core work please refer to this article and use the exercises listed, especially the first two and if you struggle with them then this is a huge factor in why your hips and core need strengthening and a major cause of back pain.