Exercise(s) of the Week: Hip Flexors

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In our earlier “lesser-known muscle groups” post HERE, we talked about what muscles comprise the hip flexors, what they do and why they need to be both stretched and strengthened.

If you sit at a desk job all day or notice that you have anterior pelvic tilt (which you can read more about HERE), stretching out these muscles is very important for proper movement, good posture, and relief of lower back pain.  If you are an athlete, especially a sprinter, or just looking to run faster or jump higher, strengthening them will be beneficial to you.  Let’s take a look at how we can accomplish both of these tasks:

Stretching

Overhead Lunges – Take the same advice from when performing split squats (Refresh your memory with the article HERE), keep your torso upright and your hips in correct alignment and stable.  You can begin this exercise just by holding your hands over your head and progress by holding a weight and increase it as you become more proficient.

Bulgarian Split Squats – These have been covered in my past article on single leg training HERE.  When using these as a stretch and warm-up, you don’t need to use weight.  Make sure you are hitting good depth and getting a nice stretch through your hip.

Rear Foot Elevated Lunges (with or without arm up) – Similar to Bulgarian Split Squats, but with more stability.  For an extra stretch, bring up the arm on the side of the elevated foot.

     

Stationary Hip Flexor Stretches (Standing and Kneeling) – These are good to do when you get a chance to stand up at the office.  Quick, painless, not too awkward looking!  For a deeper stretch, move these closer to the ground with a longer lunge.

Make sure to push the open hip forward to get the most stretch.

Strengthening

Hanging Knee / Leg Raises – Grab hold of a pull-up bar and let your body hang down.  Make sure to try and pull your shoulder blades down to stabilize your shoulders.  Brace your core and bring your knees up to your chest in a controlled manner.  You want to try and minimize how much your body sways during this exercise.  To progress this exercise, straighten your legs when you raise them.

Bench Knee / Leg Raises – If hanging leg raises are a challenge, or you have a shoulder or arm injury that prevents you from hanging comfortably, this exercise can be performed on a bench as well.  Lay down flat and grasp the back of the bench behind you.  Bring your knees up towards your chest, but take care to avoid curling your lower back along with them!  Progress this exercise by straightening your legs out.

Various Core Exercises with quick Tempo – performing these exercises with a fast pace will recruit the hip flexors more than your abdominals.  Slow the pace down to recruit more of your abdominals over hip flexors.  For example, the bicycle or flutter kick exercises.

Putting it All Together

Before your workout and during the day, perform some of the stretching exercises to loosen up your hips and give some relief to your legs and lower back.  During your workout you can easily hit two birds with one stone and knock out some core exercises along with strengthening the hip flexors by performing some of the movements listed above.  Remember the key message here: A tight muscle does not mean a strong muscle!

Kat Whitfield

B.S., NASM-CPT

Warm-Weather Workouts

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Now that the weather has finished being unpredictable on us and it’s consistently warm, it’s time to get outside!  Here are a few ideas for some fun activities that get you moving and help you on the way to achieving your health goals.

Frisbee (Disc) Golf

Official Website

It’s time to teach the world the difference between ultimate frisbee and frisbee golf!  Ultimate Frisbee is an intense field sport that combines elements of football, soccer and team handball:

Frisbee golf, while it can be competitive, is more laid-back and the goal is to get the disc into one of these:

Much like golf, you start at a tee area with the goal of getting your disc into the ‘hole’ or metal basket.  Just as golf has different drivers, so do you have different discs to choose from in frisbee golf – drivers, putters, etc.  There are almost always obstacles in the way and you run the danger of chucking your disc into a tree, bush or ditch if you aren’t careful!

Overall, frisbee golf is a very relaxing way to spend around an hour or 2 with family and friends, especially when the weather is nice out!  Not only is it relaxing and great fun, but you’ll probably end up walking a few miles as well. (Or more, depending on how many times your disc goes the opposite direction you wanted)

There are several different locations in the Triangle area to play frisbee golf – here are just a few (click for links):

• Chapel Hill, UNC Outdoor Rec Center
• Carborro, Anderson Park
• Durham, Valley Springs
• Raleigh, Cedar Hills 
• Full List!

1. Feet.
2. A hill.

You want your sprint to last from 20-30 seconds.  Sprint on the way up and walk on the way down – that’s your rest!  Try for 3-5 rounds to start with.  As you progress, however there are a few different ways to make this conditioning workout harder:

• Increase the number of rounds
• Find a steeper hill!
• You don’t want to exceed ~30 seconds on your sprint, so if you’re looking for more of a challenge, try to cover more ground in 30 seconds than you did before.  Place markers to measure your progress!
• Wear a backpack with books or other heavy objects.

There are, of course, many other activities and outdoor adventures in the summer months, but this is just a short list to get you started!  Get moving and we’ll see you on the trails!

Kat Whitfield

B.S., NASM-CPT

Loving this new active wear line

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I love my Dolman Sleeve Boatneck Top from Ideology- Macy’s new active wear collection!  This loose fitting shirt moves freely, restricting no movements, while I train. Whether I am warming up, strength training or doing a cool down stretch this shirt performs beautifully.  My favorite workout currently is a functional strength training and cardio circuit – full of dynamic movements and heart pumping cardio blasts.  (Check out a couple exercises in these pics) . This shirt is also perfect for Zumba, my new found LOVE!  And can you say stylish?!  The vibrant Berry Rush color energizes me and brightens my day.  Not to mention the fashionable cut of this shirt makes it totally double as a run-around-town outfit topper.

Know your Calves

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The calf muscles are notorious for being hard to build.  I often hear that they are something either you’re born with, or you’re not.  Well, if you’ve been doing leg press and lunges to no avail, keep reading to learn a little bit about what your calves are made of, and how to best work them and put on some size.

Anatomy

Your calves are composed of 2 main muscles: The Soleus and the Gastrocnemius, which has a medial and a lateral head.  The condition of the Achille’s Tendon is also an important part of the calf and the size of your calves.  Tendons are the tough end points of muscles before they attach to the bone;  the Achille’s is the end of the Soleus and Gastrocnemius muscles that attaches to your heel.  (You have many more tendons in your hands, knees, elbows, shoulders, feet, etc.)

Now here is where the particulars of anatomy become important in your calf training: The Soleus originates below the knee, on your tibia and fibula and is comprised of mostly slow-twitch muscle fibers.  This means that the Soleus is built more for endurance than raw strength (though it is still very powerful), such as when walking up a long flight of stairs, or wearing a pair of heels for a long day.  The Gastrocnemius originates above the knee joint on the femur and is comprised of mainly fast-twitch fibers, built for shorter bursts of strength.

(Image taken from “Best of Calves” article from t-nation.com)

What does it all mean?

So why does it matter where the muscle originates and what kind of muscle fibers they’re made of?  Well, it means that there are 2 different ways you need to train your calves to get the most out of both muscles.  The Soleus is best trained using straight-legged exercises for higher reps, such as 12-20.  The Gastrocnemius is best trained with a bent knee, due to it’s insertion above the knee joint, with lower reps, in the range of 3-8.

For the most out of your hypertrophy efforts, really take the eccentric portion of the lift slowly.  The eccentric portion is the part most of us disregard when performing the exercise – lowering your muscles back to the starting position.  For example, during a standing calf raise, lowering your heels back down towards the ground would be the eccentric part of the lift.  You’ll want to make sure you take this portion of a lift every bit as seriously as the contraction itself!

The Achille’s Tendon is a very important factor in your calf size as well.  If you rupture it, the atrophy of the calf muscles that ensues is tedious to rebuild – even with vigorous training it can take years to bring both of your calves back to normal size.  Thankfully, strength training will help keep your tendons strong and healthy.  Check back later for exercises and rep schemes to do for these muscles.

Kat Whitfield

B.S., NASM-CPT

The Gluteus Minimus and Gluteus Medius for Stability

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Part 4 of our “lesser-known muscle groups” will talk about the Glute Medius and Glute Minimus.

Most of us are familiar with the gluteus maximus – it is one of the strongest muscles in the body when activated and an integral part of proper squat, deadlift, clean, jumping, etc. form.  So where do the glute medius and minimus come into play?  Single-leg movements that require stability are where they really shine.  Think lunges, single-leg reaches, split squats, simply standing on one leg!  This was touched on in our single-leg training blog post (HERE); remember that walking, running or going up and down the stairs are essentially single-leg exercises.  Implementing exercises that train our stabilizers keep us safe and injury-free outside of the gym.

So how do these 2 muscles contribute to stability?  When you’re doing a single-leg exercise, it’s important to try and keep the hips level and even.  Not only does this help keep you stable and less likely to fall or lose balance, but it will as well help keep your hips level when standing, walking, sitting and simply going about your day-to-day life.  Having uneven hips causes all sorts of problems, such as knee pain, hip pain and even shoulder and neck issues.

Picture B shows a lengthened and unflexed glute medius, while picture A shows one in flexion, keeping the hips stable and even.  The glutes are as well considered a part of the core musculature, so if your goal is a stronger, more stable core, training these muscles is integral!  Unfortunately, most of us have very weak activation in all of the glute muscles due to sitting for long periods of the day.  When we first try to start training them, they can be sometimes difficult to feel or activate.  Later this week we will discuss exercises that can be done to train these two important stabilizers, starting from the most basic and working towards more advanced.

Kat Whitfield

B.S., NASM-CPT