RMT Club Single Leg Hip Hinge: Get Your Club Now
Proper hip hinging technique allows you to increase your range of motion so that you can move more explosively through ground based movements. It also allows you to reap more benefits from exercises such as burpees.
Read Video Text Below:
This is a WeckMethod RMT Club exercise we call the Standing [Single Leg] Hip Hinge. Here's what it looks like. Up on one foot, club up overhead, back nice and flat. Knee is flexed, and I'm going to come back down kicking the heel out, tap the ground, and come back up hinging through the hip back to the starting position.
Benefits of this exercise: core stability, hip mobility and balance. We're going to develop the ability to balance on one leg and coil into the hip powering the whole body's movement through the hip down to the ground with balance and control.
So, beginner version of this because this is a very challenging exercise. I'm going to start with the club up overhead and I want [the back] nice and flat. I don't want arch extended. I'm here. I take the foot that I would be lifting and I just toe the ground. I maintain balance with that toe position just like this. I'm going to hinge with a nice flat back. I'm going to come to my end range of motion as defined by the back remaining flat. You'll feel a big time stretch in the hamstring here because of this foot on the ground. And then I can take the club and dip the club down and bring it back up to this position here. Nice and flat, toe on the ground, tapping it and get that flexibility through the hamstring.
Now, the first version of lifting it up we're not going to start in this position. We're going to start with the foot on the ground. Now we're going to hinge down and we don't lift the leg up as high in this version so we really get the balance we can come down and find balance with the club. Bring it back up to the start position, keep this foot on the ground if necessary.
Then we move to the advanced. Now here's a very important point that's going to help us extract the absolute maximum from this exercise and it involves the internal rotation through the hip to create this coiling effect that's going to give us more power.
What the mistake that people make when they do these single leg hip hinges often is this; they'll come out and they're going to externally rotate and the side that's lifting is going to be way higher than the standing leg. What we want to do is we want to coil it in and think about keeping that back super flat. Harder for balance training but you see how I'm creating a shelf here where I've got perfect balance and positioning through the hips here and that involves internal rotation right on this crease that we call the inguinal fold. When we have that and we have the balance, now that exercise is going to translate into a faster athletic start.
So I can take that exercise progress it to a ground based movement where I'm going to coil into the hip here. See how I'm more coiled to create a more powerful extension as opposed to if I'm here and I'm open, now I don't have the full benefit of that range of motion and a full coiling through the hip. So that's a very important point [for mobility training].
Last point on this exercise. Obviously we switch and do both legs. When I'm standing on my left leg I like to put the right hand on top and when I'm standing on the right leg I like to put the left hand on top. You saw the three progressions, have at it. It'll make you a better athlete on the ground. That's the WeckMethod RMTClub Single Leg Hip Hinge.
