Hi everybody. Dr. Cobb back with you again.
Today, we’re still talking about hip pain in lunging and in squatting.
Last week, if you didn’t watch that video, please go back and check it out because we talked about different ways to begin to work on the extensor muscles, and the hip rotators because these often play a role in hip pain, also knee pain and low back pain when we’re doing different exercises or different movements and even pain during walking.
So last week we talked about vestibular stimulation as a warm-up and then we did some very kind of specific isometric work to try to get the extensors and external rotators to be more active.
Check out last week’s video here
Today, we’re going to add some load to that and make it a little bit more dynamic.
As a reminder, whenever we’re trying to increase extensor activity we want to make sure that we’re using a specific lunge position.
So, let’s say I’m having problems on my right side.
When I go into my lunge to do this work I do not want to do more of a standard kind of upright lunge where I’m keeping my spine straight up and down.
Instead, I’m going to keep my heel on the ground, lock the knee and get a forward lean.
Because of the gravitational displacement here it’s going to cause my extensor musculature to work harder.
So this is the position that I want you to be in.
So remember you’re thinking about falling forward as you go into that lunge position.
Alright. So again heel on the ground, knee locked and we’re here.
Now, what we want to do is load this. Simple way to do it, grab an exercise band. All right.
We’re going to stand on it, thumbs through. And first you’re just going to hold it in front of your chest
Now once you’re in this position, you’re simply going to go into your lunge position leaning forward and I like to actually drive it across the body, just a little bit.
So I’m getting a little bit of internal force from the band that I have to resist with a little bit of external rotation at the hip.
So I’m just going to move into this position, move in and out of that position.
I add that load. Now, we make it a little bit more challenging by not only holding the band here, but as we’re stepping forward, we’re now going to drive the band out, because the more we push that weight to the front of us and out to the side, the greater the load, we’re going to develop in the extensors.
So when you’re doing these kind of activities, if you’re using a very light band, which is what I’m using to demonstrate, you can do relatively high repetitions as long as it is pain-free.
High repetition. I mean, 25 to 40 reps.
Take a break, a couple of minutes. Do another 20-25 reps because what we’re trying to do is convince the brain that this is a safe movement, and we’re doing that by positioning and loading.
Obviously, if you’re using a heavier band because you feel like you need that in order to really feel what’s going on, you’ll have to drop the repetitions down. But generally, if we’re dealing with pain, I recommend super-light loading, pain-free repetition, pain-free range of motion.
This again, is one of my kind of favored go-to drills when I need to load those extensors and rotators.
If you really want to exaggerate the rotation.
The last thing that I would have you do is, as you’re repeating that, consciously try to externally rotate your foot.
So turn it out on the ground.
So that’s going to cause the hip to become more engaged as you use that band position.
So you can emphasize either the extensors or the rotators based off your kind of intention with what you’re doing with your foot.
Alright, so, I hope this is useful for you. Let us know when you get a chance.
See you next week.
