My hips suck...help me fix them!

[scootermaster]

So, it's simple: My hips suck.

It's killing my cleans, killing my snatches, killing my ability to do kipping pull ups, and most importantly, I can't do a ninja get up.

What can I do -- preferably at home, since I already do reps and reps and reps at the gym -- to work on getting hip drive? One of the coaches, when we were practicing kipping, had us lay on the ground and do a sort of hip-spasm/quasi-ninja getup, so I guess I could practice that, but, given how much my hips suck, I pretty much just ended up slamming my feet on the ground.

But we gottttttta fix this. I need to be able to fully extend for my explosive lifts. And it's just frustrating because it's not like I don't KNOW what to do. I totally do. I just can't get my body to [always] to it/don't have the neural pathways/muscle memory yet. So how do I fix that?

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Go to http://mobilitywod.blogspot.com/ and do those exercises every day. The PT who directs those is Kelly Starrett. He has some videos about fixing the hip's mobility, but you have to go through the CrossFit journal to get those. If you scroll back on his mobility WOD, essentially everything you do in the lower body and core will improve your hips.

 

[brikis98]

I can see three possibilities here:

1. You lack proper flexibility/mobility in your hips. The mobility WoD site SC posted is a great start, as are all of Kelly Starret videos on Youtube (free) and in the Crossfit Journal (w/ subscription). Other helpful resources include the exercises/drills in Dan John's FitCast and Stronglifts hip mobility exercises.

2. You lack strength or proprioception to "engage your hips." The first thing to understand about this is that the hips themselves don't do anything: your real goal should be to learn to engage the hip extensors - that is, the muscles that extend the hip - including your glutes, hamstrings, and adductors. The second thing to understand is that the human body isn't particularly good at engaging a specific muscle: when you go to pick up a pen from the table, you don't think to yourself "ok, engage the deltoid to lift my arm, now flex the bicep to bring my hand closer, now adjust the tricep to..." Instead, you just think "pick up the pen" and your body figures out how to accomplish it. The same thing applies to exercise: instead of focusing on "I need to use my hamstrings more", you need to focus on cues like "try to push my butt forward" or "stand up really quickly".

So what helps with getting your hip extensors working correctly? You might not like this answer, but: squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, KB swings, jumping, kipping, glute ham raises, etc. Assuming mobility isn't holding you back (see #1), getting good at these exercises is the most efficient way to develop your hip extensors. You aren't going to add 50lbs to your snatch by doing a few glute bridges or foam rolling your butt. You add 50lbs to your snatch by getting a hell of a lot more strong and powerful. And the way to do that is to lift heavy. This might mean taking a few months to do a starting strength cycle, or at least some routine heavily biased towards strength & power (CFSB, CFFB, MEBB, etc). It might just mean tossing in an extra o-lift workout once or twice a week.

3. You are actually technique limited. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of beginners to cleans, snatches, kipping pull-ups and "ninja get-ups" (aka kip-ups) are held back by poor technique and not a lack of power in the hips. That is, their glutes/hamstrings/adductors are strong enough, and they can use them just fine, but their form is way off so they never get a chance to. Fixing this primarily takes lots and lots of practice, but it can also help to read & watch lots of tutorials, have a qualified coach help you, and posting some form check videos for others to critique.

 

[scootermaster]

I can see three possibilities here:

1. You lack proper flexibility/mobility in your hips. The mobility WoD site SC posted is a great start, as are all of Kelly Starret videos on Youtube (free) and in the Crossfit Journal (w/ subscription). Other helpful resources include the exercises/drills in Dan John's FitCast and Stronglifts hip mobility exercises.

2. You lack strength or proprioception to "engage your hips." The first thing to understand about this is that the hips themselves don't do anything: your real goal should be to learn to engage the hip extensors - that is, the muscles that extend the hip - including your glutes, hamstrings, and adductors. The second thing to understand is that the human body isn't particularly good at engaging a specific muscle: when you go to pick up a pen from the table, you don't think to yourself "ok, engage the deltoid to lift my arm, now flex the bicep to bring my hand closer, now adjust the tricep to..." Instead, you just think "pick up the pen" and your body figures out how to accomplish it. The same thing applies to exercise: instead of focusing on "I need to use my hamstrings more", you need to focus on cues like "try to push my butt forward" or "stand up really quickly".

So what helps with getting your hip extensors working correctly? You might not like this answer, but: squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, KB swings, jumping, kipping, glute ham raises, etc. Assuming mobility isn't holding you back (see #1), getting good at these exercises is the most efficient way to develop your hip extensors. You aren't going to add 50lbs to your snatch by doing a few glute bridges or foam rolling your butt. You add 50lbs to your snatch by getting a hell of a lot more strong and powerful. And the way to do that is to lift heavy. This might mean taking a few months to do a starting strength cycle, or at least some routine heavily biased towards strength & power (CFSB, CFFB, MEBB, etc). It might just mean tossing in an extra o-lift workout once or twice a week.

3. You are actually technique limited. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of beginners to cleans, snatches, kipping pull-ups and "ninja get-ups" (aka kip-ups) are held back by poor technique and not a lack of power in the hips. That is, their glutes/hamstrings/adductors are strong enough, and they can use them just fine, but their form is way off so they never get a chance to. Fixing this primarily takes lots and lots of practice, but it can also help to read & watch lots of tutorials, have a qualified coach help you, and posting some form check videos for others to critique.

I guess I shoulda been more clear: I do CF. I thought maybe you might have remembered my intro to CF log I kept awhile ago. So I do all of those things. Prior to that, I did SS for about a year and a half.

So none of this is "new". I do all of this every day (or at least every day I go to the gym ) My issue isn't with, as I said, knowing how to do it. It's with getting my body to actually do it. I don't *think* it's a mobility issue. It's just, you know, the typical shit: when I do cleans, I don't fully extend going into the shrug, etc etc etc. You know, what just about every does incorrectly. The issue is that it's not like I don't know that's wrong, I just can't seem to remember/cue/whatever my body in to doing it correctly.

So I was wondering if there was something I could do to help train my body/brain to do engage the proper muscles better. That's obviously not going to replace what I do at the gym. And yeah, maybe after doing 18 of not-particularly-explosive whatevers, it'll just "come to me" one day, but, you know, I wouldn't mind being able to lift to my full potential sooner rather than later.

So in that sense, someone critiquing my technique "you're not getting tall on your snatches!" isn't going to help much, because it's not like I haven't heard that 1000x over the last however long. Y'know?

 

[brikis98]

I guess I shoulda been more clear: I do CF. I thought maybe you might have remembered my intro to CF log I kept awhile ago. So I do all of those things. Prior to that, I did SS for about a year and a half.

So none of this is "new". I do all of this every day (or at least every day I go to the gym ) My issue isn't with, as I said, knowing how to do it. It's with getting my body to actually do it. I don't *think* it's a mobility issue. It's just, you know, the typical shit: when I do cleans, I don't fully extend going into the shrug, etc etc etc. You know, what just about every does incorrectly. The issue is that it's not like I don't know that's wrong, I just can't seem to remember/cue/whatever my body in to doing it correctly.

So I was wondering if there was something I could do to help train my body/brain to do engage the proper muscles better. That's obviously not going to replace what I do at the gym. And yeah, maybe after doing 18 of not-particularly-explosive whatevers, it'll just "come to me" one day, but, you know, I wouldn't mind being able to lift to my full potential sooner rather than later.

So in that sense, someone critiquing my technique "you're not getting tall on your snatches!" isn't going to help much, because it's not like I haven't heard that 1000x over the last however long. Y'know?

There is really no "secret sauce" and no "magic trick" that will suddenly make you an elite o-lifter. It seriously is just a matter of TONS AND TONS of practice & repetition. Olympic weightlifters train almost every single day, sometimes multiple times per day, doing the same basic movements (clean, snatch, jerk) over and over again. That's how you get good at those lifts. Hit the gym, lift hard, and try to improve even a tiny bit each time - 2 extra pounds, 1 extra rep, 1 extra set, whatever. And yes, every now and then, something just "clicks" and you can make some rapid progress. But for the most part, it's a long, slow grind.

Having said that, obviously knowing the "theory" behind the lifts helps. That means you should take the time to read/watch all available resources: Starting Strength book & dvd, Greg Evertt's Olympic Weightlifting, crossfit.com videos, Crossfit Journal articles & videos, performance menu articles & videos, stronglifts articles & videos, and so on. Read, watch, try it out, rinse, repeat.

If you have access to proper coaching, the "theory" part goes much faster. If all the coaches at your CF box are saying is "you aren't getting tall" - a cue that, IMO, is not particularly helpful - then you may need to seek better alternatives. See if there are o-lifting gyms/competitions/organizations in your area, or just good o-lifters at other CF boxes. Record yourself and post videos for critique - these message boards and especially the Crossfit message boards have some good lifters who could help. There are a hundred different things you could be doing wrong and without seeing you lift, there is no way to guess which cue/exercise/drill would help you.

 

[gramboh]

Do you sit at a desk all day? Could be weak hamstrings/dormant glutes, watch the mobility WOD posts (linked above) relaetd to those issues. Simple things like supermans and band work before you lift can help a lot with glute activation.