Hobbies, traveling, completing weekend projects, and spending time with friends, family, and significant others require the ability to move and interact with the environment around us. Retired and career-driven populations looking to start a family or who are already raising children depend on efficient human movement. Whether it be working on refinishing a side table for our living room, sitting at a desk for eight to ten hours at the office, or carting a group of pre-teens to and from extracurricular activities or youth sporting events, our bodies need to function properly to support the people, communities, and projects that rely on us.
Bending over, getting up and down from a seated or kneeling position, reaching in front, twisting and rotating, or simply walking to and from the car seems simple. That is, until a spasm in the lower back, pain in the hip region, or knee mobility limitations unveil themselves to hinder normal human function. While a healthy diet, maintaining a reasonable lean muscle mass to fat mass ratio, and staying cardiovasculary fit are critical toward the success of our everyday life activities, a commonly overlooked component of our body that contributes to a substantial portion of our human movement is the hip joint and its sophisitcated network of muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, bursaes, and bone-to-bone attachments.
Residing smack dab in the middle of the body, the hips consist of the attachment of the spine to the sacrum, the pelvic girdle, and the right and left femur that inserts into the hip joint. This dense, bony framework assists the torso in rotating from left to right and bending the torso up and down. Additionally, the hip joint allows our lower extremities to stride forward when walking, scaling a set of stairs, or stepping up and over objects. It’s valuable to appreciate the muscles that create such seemingly simple movements, granting us the ability to function successfully in society as bipedal organisms.
The hip flexor muscles originate from the anterior portion of the spine and the inside of the pelvic girdle and attach to the front of the femurs. Deep, intrinsic hip flexor muscles such as the psoas and rectus femoris create powerful movements of hip flexion, better known as bringing the thigh closer to the torso and forward when we walk, climb up a set of stairs, or lift the legs to put on our shoes and socks. The glutes originate at the back end of the hip bone and are attached to the back of the thigh. Gluteal muscles are strong hip extensors that push the pelvis forward underneath the torso to assist in maintaining an upright posture. Bringing the leg backward during the posterior path of follow-through when walking movement is also supported by the gluteal and hamstring muscles. The abductors originate at the top of the pelvic girdle and attach to the inner bottom portion of the thigh and the top of the tibia, or shin bone, below the knee joint. Moving the leg to the outside and away from the body’s midline is powered by the abductors. Abduction means to “take away,” for example, like someone is being “abducted by aliens.” The difference is that aliens aren’t taking away our thighs. Our hip abductor muscles are “taking away” the thigh from the body’s midline, utilizing muscular force by abducting the hip.
A movement that we conduct with our personal training clients every training session to ensure the body never forgets how to perform the normal daily function of walking, stepping up, or getting up and down from the ground is hip flexion. The seemingly basic function of bringing the hip forward is commonly overlooked. Hip flexion usually isn’t on the forefront of people’s minds until one can’t get up off the ground or has issues going up and down stairs. Therefore, practicing the forward movement of the hip should never be overstated and practiced consistently. An example of practicing hip flexion is the “standing leg kick stretch” within our dynamic stretching warm-up that is conducted at the beginning of every training session to activate the muscle of hip flexion.
Standing Leg Kick Stretch: Reach your hand in front of you. While keeping your supporting leg straight, actively bring one leg in front of you to touch your hand as if you are performing a kicking motion. Ensure that the kicking leg is kept as straight as possible. You should experience a slight stretching sensation in your hamstring and calf muscles. Repeat this movement five to ten times on both legs.
If a guitarist doesn’t practice their musical talent, they might not perform to their musically gifted potential because lack of rehearsing a movement that one seems to know like the back of their hand consistently becomes a diminished skill. The movements of the hip aren’t much different if a seemingly innate skillset isn’t practiced. Therefore, ensuring to consistently practice the movements our hips produce contributes to keeping the body’s physical conditioning in a fine-tuned and polished state to live happy, healthy, and strong lives.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
