Learn to Use Your Hips for Increased Stability, Power, and Performance

As much as I love upper body exercises, I've grown to focus much of my training on learning to use my hips in just about all my training. Here's why you should too:

• Hip extension helps translate power between your lower body and your upper body during jumping, pushing, lifting, and sprinting.
• Using your hips first helps prevent injury to your back and knees when you bend and lift.
• Your hips act like a spring to help you move quickly and powerfully.
• Using your hips allows you to conserve energy and not tire your arms and legs out prematurely.

What is hip extension? It is when you reach back with your hips as a hinge on downward movements and when you follow through with your hips on movements back to the upright position.

How to learn the hip extension: The Hip Hinge. Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart like you would do to squat. Keep your back straight and your head in line with your hips. Start by reaching back with your hips and squatting down slightly. Here's a link to a tutorial with pictures.

Develop your hip extension: include one of the following exercises in every workout:

• Romanian Deadlift
• Glute Bridges
• Kettlebell (dumbbell) Swings (The gold standard for developing hip extension)

Once you learn to use hip extension in the hip hinge and these other exercises, you'll translate that to squats, squat jumps, burpees, etc. You'll notice more power in jumping, pushing, sprinting, etc.