The hip hinge is a staple movement where the hips provide the axis of rotation and is fantastic for building a serious posterior chain!
Lifters need to master the hinge in order to progress to movements such as the conventional deadlift and other variations such as the romanian deadlift, good morning and barbell row, to name a few.
A successful hip hinge will present with a nice neutral back position where you are engaging trunk musculature to provide a nice stable position under load. The knees will be slightly bent ensuring enough tension/demand is placed on the hamstrings.
When you get this right you place an incredible amount of demand on the posterior chain (think glutes/hamstring)!
To practice and achieve this grab a stick and place it on your back. Make sure the stick is touching your body at the sacrum (tailbone area), mid back (between the shoulder blades) and the back of the head. That would represent a decent neutral position.
From there you break at the hips sending them backwards ensuring those 3 points of contact remain intact. As you send the hips back your torso will come over and you should feel a nice stretch on the hamstrings as they take on load. Execute this slow to start with... MOVE SLOW LEARN FAST.
If at any stage you feel the stick break away from any of those points of contact, start again.
Do this until you get it right and then progress this to a barbell movement. We even recommend using this exercise as a warmup before you start training.
We know that sounds "simple" but a lot of people to struggle with this. If you do struggle, reach out and we can help!
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