Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Problem Solving for the Hips from the Gray Institute

This video comes from the Gray Institute newsletter. The instructor is Lenny Parracino. There is a lot of quick, direct, and powerful instruction in the video and while it looks like a regular hip flexor stretch, there are a lot of variations that could make this more powerful.


This is the description from the Gray Institute:

The hip is a very powerful region of the human body, when it works well we appreciate its power. When it’s restricted, we feel its loss of transformation and subsequent compensation. On one end, due to the hip region being so powerful it can adaptively get ‘tight” and eventually stiff by exercising more than resting/recovering. On the other end if we live a more sedentary life especially prolonged sitting, the hip region becomes adaptively tight and eventually chronically stiff. This lack of balance (too much movement or too little movement) can lead to many compensations most commonly low back pain, knee dysfunction and/or overall loss of daily function (picking up objects from ground, getting in and out of car, etc.). This can be simplified as an energy leak in the power center causing compensation or symptoms elsewhere. To help balance this very important power center, please join the Gray Institute to learn a very powerful technique to unlock the commonly locked hip region. You will feel the results immediately!
Here is a previous post I made Warming up runners through three planes of motion that has an embedded video of Gary Gray of the Gray Instittue addressing the issue of hip tightness He completely explains all motions of the Hip Joint and how the different motions interact. He talks about how tightness of the hip capsules can restrict motion in all three planes of motion and begins mentioning how to address restrictions of the femur in the hip capsule which can create body disfunctions and bad motions throughout the body.

2 comments:

Mike said...

Stuff like this can be so frustrating, because it is hard to do some of this without two people, and it uses a fancy piece of equipment no one would own.

As far as breaking up some of the conglomerated tissues, have you ever used a rumble roller? I bought one recently, and I don't think I will ever go back to a plain foam roller. It really seems to get in there and massage the tissues, and free them up

Jim Hansen said...

Mike, the post I made after this on the Wharton's AIS stretching has a better hip flexor stretch (at least for me at this time)using a rope. I also see it featured in the new Running Times magazine I got in the mail today. It doesn't address all the ranges of motion as this one does, but it is not a kneeling stretch and seems to hrelease my tissues better.

Yes, I have a rumble roller. I got it a couple years ago and I even think they use my review on their site. I have just recently slowly started to use my TP roller again and need to see how the rumble roller does soon. I stopped doing all rolling after my surgery, because I used to overdue stretching and foam rolling and I want to see what really works best for me, but yes Rumble Rollers are cool. I have the full sized one and wish I had the half-sized one.