Hip Strength For Speed

When strengthening the legs and hips, most of us take our time and work on squats, dead lifts, and other power lifts that will build power and strength. These are very important to develop the speed you want and need to compete in sports today, but there are other things that often get missed that will give you that extra stability and strength to help you excel even more. I am speaking of the muscles that do internal rotation and external rotation (turn your leg in and out). Many times these muscles are not developed as well as they could be and because of this, I find other muscles working too hard and eventually getting injured (hamstring pulls for example).

 Make sure to incorporate a few of the following exercises in your training routine:

• Internal rotations: Lying on stomach with knee bent at 90 degrees and cable or tubing on your ankle, turn your leg in so the foot goes out (trust me, this is internal rotation of the hip) This can also be done seated or standing.
• External rotations: Lying on stomach with knee bent at 90 degrees and cable or tubing on your ankle, turn your leg out so the foot goes in. This can also be done seated or standing.
• Hip flexion with internal rotation: Standing with cable or tubing on your ankle, turn your leg in, lift the leg out to the front of you with foot still pointing in.
• Hip abduction with internal rotation: Standing with cable or tubing on your ankle, turn your leg in, lift the leg out to the side with foot still pointing in.
• Hip flexion with external rotation: Standing with cable or tubing on your ankle, turn your leg out, lift the leg out to the front of you with foot still pointing out.
• Hip abduction with external rotation: Standing with cable or tubing on your ankle, turn your leg out, lift the leg out to the side with foot still pointing out.
• Wall hip flexion with internal rotation: Lying on your back with hip against wall, leg against wall is turned in so toe is pointed in, lift straight leg up.
• Wall hip abduction with internal rotation: Lying on your side with back against wall, top leg is turned in so toe is pointed down, lift straight leg up.

 There are several ways you can incorporate rotation in your routine. These are just a few things that can assist in the overall hip development. Add these in so that you can better develop hip strength which will equate to speed.

Active Range of Motion vs. Stretching

Hamstrings for Speed

In order to improve your speed, it is important to have strong and powerful hamstrings. The hamstrings play a vital role in sprinting and it is important to include hamstring exercises in your training routine. Traditional exercises such as squats, lunges, and dead lifts will work the hamstrings, but you may need more in order to emphasize them and build the speed and power you want.

 

Some exercises that do emphasize the hamstrings are:

• Russian Dead Lifts (RDL’s, straight-legged dead lifts)
• Leg Curls (prone or on your stomach and seated)
• Ball Leg Curls (feet in ball, shoulders on ground, pull ball towards body while body goes up)
• Chair Walks (sitting on a chair with wheels and pulling forward on your heels)
• Hip Extensions (standing, kneeling, on stomach)
• Seated Body Lifts (seated on ground, hands under hips, feet out in front, lift body with one leg and hands)

 

There are many more ways you can work on the hamstrings and incorporate them in your routine. It is important that you have a balance of all muscles surrounding the hip and many times the hamstrings get neglected.

Speed Training

In sports today, if you don’t have the speed to compete at a high level, you will get left behind. At Achieve Optimal Performance we are here to bring out the best in you. Here you will find tools that will allow you to reach your potential. Speed can be taught and improved, but it is up to you whether or not you will improve.

Most people involved in sports understand that the faster you are the more competitive you will be. So we all go out and perform drills that we believe will be the best thing for us, or what someone else did and got results from without understanding what this does for that individual. Every sport calls for a slight difference in programming but all have similar concepts and mechanics. Without the proper mechanics, your road to success will be a much more difficult one to achieve.

Running form has many variations and some more beneficial than others. We have all heard lift your knees up, lean your body forward, move your arms with your legs, but how should this be done to give us the best results? Can we actually be hurting ourselves with the form we have been taught or passed down from one source to another? We hope to shed some light on this so that you have the tools that will set you up for success. Running is something we all do, but we don’t all run for success.

Running is also a skill that needs to be practiced often. We need to put in several thousands of hours in order to make this a natural, subconcious event. Not only do we need to put in this level of practice, but we have to do this properly in order to improve. We don’t have to be perfect, but we have to be excellent in our efforts and intentions, otherwise we may be wasting our time.

Strength Training

Strength and power are necessary to excel in all fields of play. The athletes that take the time to do this properly will be the ones who come out on top. In today’s athletic world, we are all aware that improving our strength will enhance our performance if done appropriately.

How many of us get our strength training knowledge from someone who got their knowledge from someone who got their knowledge from someone who did something well in the past and we mimicked that? Confused? Many programs continue to get passed down from generation to generation and a huge “gym science” emerges and we all follow suit because someone else received gains from this. How many of those who received the gains were naturally gifted individuals and no matter what they did, they will improve and succeed? How many times do we seek out a trainer who looks like what we want to achieve and then ask them what they did and then try to follow that program?

There are strength programs that are geared for specific things and sports and may not provide the best for you and your sport. When you perform weight or resistance traininig, do you take the time to understand what is happening inside of your body? Following the rules of a lift, may not follow the rules of your body. If you don’t follow the rules of your body while performing these lifts, you can decrease your body’s ability to perform at its highest level. It may not happen right away, but if you continue, you will find a time where this may be true.

The mechanics of our bodies and the way it responds to forces are the rules we all need to follow. Getting the right program that keeps this in mind will give you the ability to excel your performance throughout your career and life.

When you are working out with resistance training, how do you know the muscles you intend to work are actually working? Are you improving your body’s ability to perform a specific motion or are you enhancing a compensation pattern you have already created?

These questions are important to know the answers to in order to keep moving towards excellence and optimal performance. Our body is great and finding a way to get from point A to point B and we have an amazing network of systems in our body that will keep us moving even when something is not working. In order to achieve optimal performance, it is beneficial to have everything working in our body as efficiently as we can.

Muscles in our body are under stress every day. We intentionally place them under stress so they respond to increased forces in order to perform a particular movement better. Are you sure that this stress is not causing somethings to lose their ability to perform properly? Muscles may lose their ability to function appropriately at all times under some stresses. When this happens, we fall into compensation patterns. When we need this particular muscle to respond instantaneously, it may not be able to do so and now undue stress gets placed elsewhere on our body causing possible damage.

A tool that has been able to find these muscles that are not performing properly is called Muscle Activation Techniques. This tool is one that is designed to locate the “weak” link and put it back in the game. It decreases the body’s compensations and is designed to return it to ideal mechanics. This enables you to continue to enhance your performance and continue to excel. This tool is difficult to describe at times as everyone wants to compare it to something else which it can not. The best way for someone to get a better understanding is to experience it. Several athletes come to get this type of treatment and have received amazing results. Athletes continue to improve upon their personal bests at all levels from youth, to high school, college, Olympians, to professionals.