The ability to hip hinge is a key functional movement pattern learned at an early age in life. It allows us to execute the ability to pick up items from the floor and learn to transition loads to waist height safely and effectively.
How To Hip Hinge
Hip hinging allows us to dissociate the pelvis from the lumbar spine and trunk, ensuring that power is produced through the legs not through the spine.
The concept is that the torso will stay stable while the legs translate from a flexed position to an extended position to elevate the load from a lower to a higher position.
Pushing our weight backwards or posteriorly allows us to counter balance our center of gravity and create the proper leverage.
Proper Form For The Hip Hinge
Improper form usually results in compensating at the lumbar spine by extending the lumbar to lift the weight or bending too far over the knees, producing excessive stress anteriorly onto the knee joints.
If you watch toddlers pick up toys from the floor, they will hip hinge or dead lift the weight. It is a natural learned movement pattern as they figure out how to bring an item from the floor closer to them and move it without falling forward.
As adults we can tend to lose these primitive patterns due to poor habits in our environment and lifestyle.
The following exercises are some simple correctives used to help improve motor control for hip hinging with translation into the deadlift. This movement pattern is the foundation also for the double arm swing (kettlebell swing).
The following basic drills are used to initiate hip extension and help for translation into the more advanced moves.
Hip Hinge Drills
Double Leg Bridge
Starting on your back, draw your belly button inwards, squeeze your gluteals together and push through your feet to lift your hips upward.
- Avoid arching the spine and keep your head neutral.
- Avoid pushing the back of your head into the ground and focus on pushing through your feet.
- Repeat 15 times.
Tall Kneel Raises
Starting in the kneeling position with your feet pointed downward, draw your belly button inward and keep your shoulders back with the head neutral.
- From the kneeling position, move upward and forward to a tall kneel position while maintaining the neutral spine.
- Repeat 15 times.
Tall Knee Rises Against Band
Starting in the same position of kneeling, anchor a band to the wall or door and loop it around your waist.
- Assume the same posture checkpoints of a neutral spine and move upward and forward against the band.
- Avoid arching the lumber spine.
- Repeat 15 times.
Banded Standing Hip Thrust
Once hip extension is mastered in tall kneeling, progress to standing with the band around the waist.
Allow the band to pull your hips backwards so you flex at the crease of your pants while also focusing on keeping your knees behind your toes.
Your knees bend, but only to allow you to push your hips back further.
Maintain the neutral spine checkpoints from the tall kneeling drill.
- Once in the full hip hinge position, move your hips forward against the band.
- Maintain the neutral spine and avoid arching the lumbar region.
- Allow the band to pull your hips back to the starting position.
- Repeat 15 times.
Hip Hinge With Wall Touch
Using a wall or an exercise ball is a great tactile feedback method to help promote proper posterior weight shift.
- Starting in the standing position, place a dowel or a pole behind your back so that it touches the back of your head, in between the shoulders blades and your tailbone.
- Maintaining all three points of contact, push your hips back so they touch the wall.
- The same method can be done with an exercise ball. Maintain a neutral spine and avoid arching the lumbar spine. Keep the knees behind the toes.
- Repeat 15 times.
Hip Hinge Regular
Once proper form is executed with tactile cueing, progress to the regular hip hinge.
- Using the dowel to contact the back of the head, in between the shoulder blades and tailbone, move your hips backward while maintaining the neutral spine and preventing the knees from moving over the toes.
- Repeat 15 times.
Hip Hinge Latissimus Engagement
This drill helps to prepare for lifting weight by practicing proper shoulder positioning to ensure a stable torso when moving the weight.
- Start by standing with your opposite hand on one of your latissimus muscles. This is found on the outer side of your armpit and runs down along your ribs.
- Holding your hand there, practice squeezing your shoulder blades back and down against your body.
- It may help to put a towel between your arm and side of your torso to squeeze.
- Repeat 15 times.
Kettlebell Dead Lift
To lift resistance from the floor, all the movements from the prior drills will be applied into one fluid sequence with the lift.
- Starting with the weight propped up on a stool allows for an easier start position until you get comfortable with lifting weight further down.
- With a kettlebell or dumbbell on a stool, step as close as possible, preferably with your feet around the stool.
- The closer you are to the object, the less lever arm it is for your back.
(Never try to reach and lift something heavy with the weight too far out in front of you. Always bring the weight as close as possible to you.)
- With your hips pushed back in the hip hinge position, grab the weight and execute the lat squeeze drill so your shoulder blades are back and down pressed against the body.
- In one movement, keep the arms straight and locked, press your feet into the ground and move your hips forward to lift the weight.
- Think about pushing the ground down under your feet while keeping your shoulders locked in place.
- On the way back down, start by pushing your hips back into the hip hinge to counter balance the weight.
When the stool height become easy, progress to lifting from the floor with the same mechanics.
Kettlebell Single Arm Lift
Lifting in the single arm position will challenge the core and hips more.
Loading one side of the body will help train for anti rotation and also work asymmetries in the core, shoulders and hips. The same mechanics principles apply as with the regular lift with double arms.
- Place one hand on the small of your back and the other on the weight.
- Execute the lat squeeze drill and move the hips forward while lifting the weight and keeping it close to your body.
- Focus on staying in the midline and avoid side bending the torso or rotating to lift the weight.
Suitcase Dead Lift
The suitcase dead lift received its name due the nature of the single sided lift which resembles lifting a suitcase off the floor. This challenges the core control slightly more than the one arm dead lift by loading the one side more causing you to resist side bending.
The same mechanics principles apply with weight back, neutral spine, shoulders squeezed and pushing the hips forward and upward.
Understanding how to lift weight properly from the floor through proper hip hinging and dead lifting is essential for avoiding lumbar injuries. It also is a great exercise for the hips, core and entire body.
It allows for mechanical efficiency as well as to avoid compensation elsewhere in the body such as the knees, arms and neck.
It is the foundation for the kettlebell swing as well, which dead lifting and swings can both be used to train power.
Starting with the basic movements demonstrated here will help learn dissociation of the pelvis from the trunk and allow for proper progression into the more advanced hip hinging and lifting without compensation.
About The Author:
Michael St. George PT, DPT has been practicing for 10 years primarily in the outpatient and orthopedic setting. He works for a physical therapist owned private practice based in the greater Philadelphia area and surrounding suburbs. Mike is certified through Functional Movement Systems for FMS, SFMA and FCS which consist of screens and testing used to measure movement quality and performance. Mike also has experience with working with numerous surgeons and physicians from the Rothman institute. Currently he works primarily with ACL, meniscus and post surgical recovery and sports injuries, return to sport testing and performance, running evaluation and re training and hand and upper extremity conditions.
