How to Strengthen Your Hip Flexors Safely
in this video we're going to talk about how to improve your hip flexion range and motion and strength so if you're ready let's get ready to think right move right [Music] let's start with a quick definition hip flexion is when your thigh bone your femur starts coming up towards your chest hip extension is the opposite going this way so in this video we're talking about hip flexion meaning this angle is getting smaller and smaller I got an email from Craig who is a user of the Fai fix program and he told me that he saw incredible Improvement in his hip flexion by doing one simple thing the downside to this simple thing however was that he felt like he kind of crippled himself a little bit so we're going to talk about what he did his questions about what he did and how he and you can improve your hip flexion and strength without hurting yourself in the long run so first I was really stoked to get this message from Craig because he basically said hey I was really Limited in hip flexion I could only get about 30 degrees of hip flexion but I did the can can exercise in the hip flexion routine that's in the Fai fix program and I noticed that if I really tried just super hard to fire the right muscles and didn't slowly and strongly I could get almost to 90 degrees he did this on his left side which is the one that was really limited and he increased his range of motion by a lot he said he went from 30 degrees to about 5 degrees shy of the 90 degree angle which is I don't know a thousand degrees difference but after he was finished improving his range of motion he felt like whoa he lost all that range and his hip got super super sore so his first question is basically is this okay or did I just wreck myself so the quick answer is no Craig did not just permanently destroy his hip he just really over attacks muscles that are just not used to working in that position so think about your muscles and their length and their strength at those different lengths if we think about the muscles on the front of your hip joint in the front of your thigh those muscles for many of us operate almost not at all because we're basically sitting all the time they're turned off and they're just hanging out with this part shortened up in this part lengthened on the quads okay the hip flexors up here are just shortened up and usually not working very hard because we just sit all day and we're supported when we sit so they don't really have to do anything when we go to raise the leg if for Craig he's not used to using these hip flexor muscles the quads the high quads act as hip flexors he's not used to using them to lift the thigh bone up but it is possible to use them if you focus and that's what he did except he hasn't used those muscles and years so then when he fires and fires and fires he's basically taking those muscles from one percent activity to a hundred percent of their current capacity that's like you spending 10 years on the couch and then standing up and saying you know what I think I'm gonna go do an Iron Man your whole body would hurt and you'd probably die if you went to go do an Iron Man with no training the muscle fibers here have been sitting on the couch binging on Netflix so when you tell them hey it's time to work out let's lift that leg and lift lift lift lift they are going to feel like garbage afterwards because you really overloaded them hey I want to give a big shout out and thanks to the following people who sent me a donation via Paypal Jaleel Margaret Megan Sarah Linda and Sandra thank you all so much for your generous donations if you want to support me too use the PayPal or patreon links you'll find in the description box or you use the YouTube join and thanks buttons now let's get back to it the key thing here is to do what Craig brings up in item number two in his email to me his question is should I use the 70 rule from Tai Chi before this email I had never heard of the 70 Rule and I really only heard of the 80 20 rule but in any case the 70 percent rule as Craig explained it is basically use 70 effort and you'll eventually see that things improve so he asked me should I just maybe pause at the end of my range of motion before lowering it down will that reduced amount of effort still give me gains in the long run and the answer Craig is yes you will get gains in the long run if you're using 70 effort and I strongly encourage you to stick to around 70 effort so if you are Craig or you're not Craig think about using less than 100 effort the majority of the time but there is one thing you want to add to this you don't need to stick to just 70 percent all the time you want to vary the intensity level at which you're working to improve different parts of your range of motion so if we're talking about hip flexion and we're going like 70 percent effort that's probably cool but if you're just starting out you're an absolute beginner maybe you want to start out with 40 effort that's something that we recommend in the Fai fix with different stretches and any exercise all of my exercise programs I mentioned starting off easier maybe 50 effort so that you can feel the muscles figuring out what they're supposed to do if you don't know how to do a certain motion and you're like oh I'm just gonna go as hard as I can you're going to hurt yourself because slow is safe and fast is foolish so when you're starting out with your hip flexor exercises go slow because that's safe and see how much you can tolerate you don't have to go to 70 the first couple times over time seventy percent may feel like okay yeah I like being there and sometimes you might want to work harder you might want to go to 85 you might want to go to 95 of your maximum intensity level this is the same type of principle that weight lifters will use to increase their strength levels they're not going to always work at 65 75 85 or 95 percent of their maximum output the same thing goes for sprinters or for swimmers or for people who are working on breath holds you don't always work at the exact same intensity all the time so maybe today you're like okay I'm gonna go hard hard hard hard hard and then tomorrow you're gonna just take it easy just move it a little bit stretch it out a little bit make sure that the muscles don't lose range of motion in the other direction so you can stretch things out massage them just take them gently through that full range of motion and one last thing I want to mention is you want to try to make small incremental improvements if possible Craig was really busting his butt to just try to get 40 degrees of improvement which is awesome I applaud him for trying that but also it resulted in things getting really locked up because those muscles freaked out instead what you and Craig can do is just slowly work on improving by one degree or two degrees or half a degree each day that little bit of challenge is going to yield big results every time you're working on improving your hip flexion range of motion that's going to give your body time to figure out how to handle that new position and since it's just a slight little bit different from what you're used to it's not going to feel so shocking to your entire body or to all these muscles around the hip joint you can hold this position wait there until you really feel the fatigue in the right spot or you can use ankle weights or put a little weight or a dumbbell just right on top of your leg to make your hip flexor muscles get a little bit stronger in that slightly different more hip flexed position and then over time you can explore or see what different angles you can achieve with your hip flexors where can you control where can you not control the goal is to find strength at every length and volition at every position the other big takeaway from Craig's story is that even if you have an alleged bone-shaped problem you can actually make drastic and dramatic improvements in your hip range of motion by firing up the right muscles just do it slowly safely and gradually and you'll find that you can own these new ranges of motion without hurting yourself all these lessons for hip flexion also apply to hip extension and also to hip abduction or to external rotation or internal rotation it's all the same because all of it is controlled by your muscles which is why you should a t m always think muscles to improve your hip mobility be sure to go to uprighthealth.com DIY where you'll find the Fai fix program that Craig's doing and also healthy hips one I've got more videos that'll help you with your hips here to support this channel use the patreon or PayPal links you'll find in the description box or the YouTube join in thanks buttons like sharing subscribe and as always I hope you remember that pain sucks live stream [Music]
