Hip mobility has never been my strong point. I had incredibly tight hips before I became a runner and now I run most days the situation has only gotten worse. Watching me try to sit cross-legged will bring tears to your ears, mirroring the ones in mine as I struggle to get near the position.
As a result, I do make an effort to mobilize my hips with dynamic stretching, mostly through doing yoga for runners regularly, but I still felt my hips needed more of a focus. That’s when I saw a post on Instagram from physiotherapist Sam Caddick, who regularly dishes out excellent advice for runners looking to improve their mobility and stay injury free.
The post gives four hip drills aimed at runners, especially those who would class themselves as mobility beginners, which definitely appealed to me. You don’t need any equipment to do the drills, though you can roll out one of the best yoga mats if you’re not on a comfortable surface, and it only takes a few minutes to do them — though extending that time to more like 10-15 minutes, and doing the drills every other day, is what Caddick recommends.
Watch Sam Caddick’s hip mobility drills
The four drills are demonstrated in Caddick’s Instagram post, and he suggests doing each for a minute, or a minute each side. If you’re finding the drills too difficult then you can sit or kneel on a cushion to make it easier to get into the positions.
Here are the hip mobility drills in the video:
- 90/90 hip rotations
- Alternating 90/90 reaches
- Frog rock backs
- Quadruped hip CARS to rock back
I tried the routine on my rest day when my muscles and joints were aching from a double workout the day before, and found it enjoyable and useful, though the real benefits will come from doing it regularly rather than a one-off session. Here are my main takeaways from doing the drills:
I could actually do the drills
My big fear with a lot of mobility routines is that I’m too inflexible to even start doing them, something I find is often the case with yoga for runners sessions on YouTube which begin with seated poses I can’t get close to. I could do all of these beginner-friendly hip drills and feel the stretch in the right place with each, which means I can (hopefully) reap the benefits of them in time.
Watch closely to get the movement right
Caddick shows off each drill quickly in his YouTube video and it’s worth watching it through a few times to get to grips with them before you start. They’re not complex movements, but getting them exactly right is important to mobilizing the right areas of the body. I had the post up in front of me and became more familiar with the movements as I did them.
Enjoy the stretch and don't rush
It feels good to stretch the hips, so move slowly and enjoy the time you spend in the position, rather than rushing back and forth like you’re trying to power through a strength workout, something I was guilty of before reminding myself to slow down and enjoy the drills.
With these movements I found it was easy to recognize when I was stretching my hip flexors and glutes and could pause there to feel it for a beat before moving back to the starting position.
Use a soft surface or yoga mat
You can do the first two drills on a hard floor, but you’re on your knees for the frog rock backs and I found that a hard floor was an unwelcome distraction and made it harder to focus on the stretch in my hips as opposed to the pain in my knees. Doing them on a deeper carpet, yoga mat or the turf Caddick is on in his video would have been better.
You really can do them anywhere
I slipped in a round of the drills at the office in a quiet meeting room, which was great for loosening up my hips on a day where I was otherwise mostly sedentary. You just need five to 15 minutes and enough space to stretch your legs out to the side, so next time you need a quick mental break from work give the drills a go wherever you happen to be.
