Exercise of the Week: Integrating Hip Mobility with Core Stability
Written on April 4, 2014 at 5:14 am, by Eric Cressey
In this week's installment of "Exercise of the Week," I want to introduce one of my favorite "combo" drills for hip mobility and core stability. I actually came up with the lateral lunge with band overhead reach myself in the summer of 2012 as I was thinking up ways for our throwers to have better rotary and anterior core stability as they rode their back hips down the mound during their pitching delivery. I introduced the exercise in phase 2 of The High Performance Handbook, and got several emails from customers who commented on just how much they liked it. Give it a shot!
The name of the game with this exercise is "bang for your buck." You're getting anterior core stability that'll help you prevent the lower back from slipping into too big an arch. You're getting rotary stability that'll help prevent excessive rotation of your spine. You're getting hip mobility that'll enable you to get into new ranges of motion. And, you'll build lower body frontal plane stability so that you can perform outside of just the sagittal (straight-ahead) plane.
I'll usually do three sets of 6-8 reps per side. Enjoy!
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April 4th, 2014 at 6:13 am
Very creative. Like it a lot. Keep them coming Eric.
April 4th, 2014 at 7:32 am
Did I purchase your high performance hand book. Can’t rember. Lol.
April 4th, 2014 at 7:33 am
What constitutes a full set, and how long to you hold each position?
April 4th, 2014 at 7:43 am
I really love this exercise! Thanks for all your great emails and tips:)
April 4th, 2014 at 10:34 am
Thanks, Judy!
April 4th, 2014 at 10:38 am
Mark,
Yes, you did purchase it back in November. Please just drop me an email if you’d like me to resend the download info.
April 5th, 2014 at 6:00 am
Excellant Eric! thanks
wish i could be there this weekend w/ you & Chad, should be awesome
April 6th, 2014 at 4:50 am
Ted,
A set would be 6-8 reps on each side. I usually have the athlete give a full exhale when the arms are in the overhead position, then return to the start.
April 7th, 2014 at 6:28 am
Thank you for sharing this. I love it and I’ll definitely add it to my daily workout routine.
April 8th, 2014 at 10:16 am
Great drill Eric! Love the amount of things you’re getting with one movement. I’ll be sure to throw this one at some of my clients soon.
April 13th, 2014 at 7:31 am
Eric, when you do vertical core holds like this do you set up in line with the anchor point? I have played around with the hands lined up with the anchor point while in the extended position, I haven’t determined which is better or if it even matter too much. Wondering your thoughts…
Thanks for the great variation.
John
April 14th, 2014 at 1:45 pm
John,
Yes, the anchor point is pretty much in line with the body.