performance — By jason gonzalez

mobility and flexibility: knee and hip edition

Knees and hips, hips and knees. As people age, these are often two joints that seem to offer up the most issues. Given that we use them daily, it's high time we start considering their health long before they start bothering us. So, to preempt injury and joint erosion, we looked to our buddy Jason Gonzalez for his expertise on all things movement. He put together a few different moves to get your joints moving and add stability and mobility back into your daily workout.

Whether you’re a runner, play a sport, or simply need to add stability, this drill is great for adding stability to the knee and hip. It will challenge your side to side stability in the frontal plane of movement. Let's get started.

Lateral Weight Shift

Coaching Cues:

Start with your weight shifted to one side.
Make sure your butt is sitting back so you’re not completely shifted forward into your knee.
Slowly shift towards the other side and repeat the same setup.

Rep/Set Prescription:

1-2 sets of 10 per side

Hip Airplanes

This drill will be excellent to use as a warm-up on lower body day or a general hip/knee stability exercise. The goal is stabilizing on one leg as you open and close your hips.

Coaching Cues

As you open your hips make sure everything follows: your shoulders, upper back, head, and opposite leg.
Exhale as you open up, try and keep your knee in line with your toes on the grounded leg.

Rep/Set Prescription:

2-3 sets of 5-10 rotations

Knee/Hip Stability

Single Leg Deadlift

This drill is great to use for a warm-up on lower body day or to teach a hip hinge pattern. Which is very important when it comes to learning to lift properly.

Coaching Cues:

Grab the floor with your left foot and slightly bend your left knee.
With your right arm, you’ll go down towards the floor while your right leg goes directly behind you up towards the ceiling.
Keep your back flat and just go down until you feel a tension in your left hamstring.
Come back up all the way then switch sides

Rep/Set Prescription:

2-3 sets 10 repetitions

For more workouts, warm-ups, and mobility techniques from Jason, follow him on Instagram: @repthereds