These are another four of my favorite hip exercises. A lot of different working components here.
1. Swan Hops
A great exercise for introducing a more dynamic component to lengthening the glutes and incorporating the stretch reflex. The hips have to remain stable while the glutes and hamstrings are tasked with producing force from a lengthened position.
2. Hinge Wall Toss
Essentially a dynamic hinge. As you accelerate the ball, you have to sink into the hips and then rapidly reverse the motion. This is a great way to explore relative motion at the hips while teaching the glutes to lengthen and contract faster.
3. Front Foot Elevated Side Bends
Yes, we’re getting lateral flexion through the spine, but there’s more going on. The position creates a forced hip hike on one side, allowing the opposite side of the pelvis to drop and creating more relative motion through the hips.
4. Lateral Sled Drags
A great locomotion exercise. While it’s primarily concentric, it gives the hips an opportunity to abduct and push away from the ground while moving laterally.
Different exercises. Different demands. More options for building capable hips.
If you’re a ⚽️ player looking to stay healthy, get stronger, and move faster, give me a follow.
Parallel Performance
Share
We help soccer players get faster and stronger.
The side bend as a movement is especially beneficial for long-term spinal health and for ⚽️ players both in and out of season.
What’s cool about this type of movement is that we are actively mobilizing the thoracic spine through spinal lateral flexion. But the way we position the body changes the demand and gives us different ways to progress the movement.
1. Side bend with the feet anchored
Here, you’re laying on your side with the feet anchored. Because we’re no longer standing, we take away some of the variables that come with being upright and create a different demand for lateral flexion. This can help us isolate the side bending component and allow the athlete to explore movement through the thoracic spine.
2. Standing spinal lateral flexion
Now we introduce the standing position. This changes the demand because we have to manage the body while also creating lateral flexion. We also introduce more of a hip hike, allowing the pelvis and spine to contribute together rather than simply asking the spine to move by itself.
3. Half kneeling lateral flexion
Similar to the standing variation, the hip hike is still part of the movement. However, by moving into a half kneeling position, we change the balance demands and take away some of the stability requirements of standing. The back leg also contributes by creating a dynamic stretch through the hip flexor region, giving us another layer of movement to work with.
4. Overhead lateral flexion
This variation becomes more integrated. With the load positioned overhead, the lever arm increases, making the lateral flexion more demanding and increasing the contribution required from the obliques. We’re no longer simply exploring the movement, but integrating the spine, pelvis, and upper extremity while managing an external load.
All four variations are phenomenal ways to expose soccer players to lateral spinal movement and help maintain the capacity of the spine over the long term.
If you’re a ⚽️ player looking to stay healthy, get strong, and get fast, give me a follow.
These are some of my favorite exercises for ⚽️ players looking to stay healthy throughout the season while also getting stronger and faster.
I like these exercises because we have a combination of dynamic movements and exercises that allow us to develop general strength.
For the first two, we’re looking at hanging knee-tuck variations. With both, we want to actively push into the support as we anchor through the arms and create stability through the shoulders. With the straight-ahead knee tuck, we want to actively bring the knees up toward the body while maintaining that shoulder stability. With the side-to-side variation, we’re looking for as much lateral flexion as we can create as we drive the knees toward one side and then the other.
The bottom two exercises are a little more dynamic. Obviously, I’m not demonstrating them at full speed here for the sake of the demonstration.
The rotational ball throw from low to high is a great option, particularly when we use the back leg. As we rotate and throw, we’re getting a dynamic lengthening through the hip flexor region of that back leg. The dynamic component also allows us to take advantage of the stretch reflex, helping bridge the gap between slower, controlled movements and faster, more explosive actions.
And then we have the ball crunch toss. This one should be performed much more dynamically than I’m demonstrating here. It’s a great exercise for challenging the anterior trunk, but it also brings the shoulders into the movement.
If you’re a ⚽️ player looking to stay healthy, get stronger, and get faster throughout the season, follow me.
4 Core Hip Exercises Every ⚽️ Player Needs part ✌🏽
If you’re a ⚽️ player looking to keep your hips healthy and resilient, these are four exercises I like to use to expose the hips to different positions, ranges, and movement demands.
1. Side Lunge
The variable here is maintaining a nice skeletal stack over the leg that isn’t on the slider. We want to create more length through the glutes on that side. At the same time, on the opposite leg, we want to maintain some internal rotation of the femur to help offset some of the external rotation demands that are constantly present in ⚽️ .
2. Oscillatory Curtsy Step-Up
You’re moving side to side while rapidly changing positions, which challenges the stretch-reflex qualities of the hip. Naturally, if you’re tense, this one is going to be more difficult. If needed, lower the step to make it more manageable.
There’s also a lot of movement through the foot, which makes this a great integrated exercise compared to something like a traditional curtsy lunge. We’re essentially raising the floor by elevating the platform.
3. Horse Stance
Horse stance variations are phenomenal for getting length through the adductors. Follow the path of the foot with the knee, stay relatively tall, and allow your bodyweight to sink down into the position before returning to the ground.
4. Cossack Squat Variation
This one gives us even more length through the adductors and inner thigh. Yes, we’re biasing external rotation of the femur at the hip, but that position isn’t inherently bad.
The goal isn’t to avoid certain positions. It’s to make sure we can actually own them.
If you’re a ⚽️ player looking to stay healthy, get stronger, and get faster during the season and in the offseason, give me a follow.
Part 4: Hip Strength for ⚽️ Players
Here’s part four of my series on exercises I use to keep ⚽️ players’ hips strong and healthy during the season and in the offseason.
First up: first step pushes. This mimics an acceleration position while creating a lot of delayed knee extension, forcing the hip to produce strength through a powerful extended position. Adding the dynamic component gives the hip musculature a slightly different challenge.
Next, single leg hamstring curls. Obviously great for strengthening the hamstrings, but there’s also a big demand for core and pelvic control while working one leg at a time.
Then we have the hip thrust, which is an exercise you can load heavily and use to build a lot of hip extension strength.
Finally, heavy hip hinges. One of my favorite ways to strengthen the posterior chain.
These are all part of my arsenal for ⚽️ players who want to stay healthy, get stronger and faster, and be better prepared to perform.
Dynamic Adductor + Hamstring Stretches
These dynamic exercises are designed to mimic some of the benefits of more rhythmic, standing-based stretches, but with a slightly different stimulus.
The resistance band adds a degree of instability, which requires you to move at faster rates and actively control the position. While they don’t have the same rhythmic component as some standing stretches, they can provide a similar stimulus without accumulating as much stress.
Stretch 1: Adductors and hamstrings. Think about driving the knee up and down rather than simply folding the knee. Create enough tension to challenge the position while still being able to get the leg close to a full lockout.
Stretch 2: Similar muscle groups, but now we’re shortening and lengthening the adductors as we drive the leg toward the midline of the body.
Stretch 3: More hamstring and calf focused. Shift the knee upward and back while working toward as much knee extension as you can comfortably achieve.
Stretch 4: A more dynamic up-and-down motion, with more emphasis on the posterior chain, especially the glutes.
If you’re a ⚽️ player in the off-season looking to stay healthy, strong, and fast, give me a follow.
⚽️ Core Exercises
These are some of my favorite ab exercises for in-season and off-season ⚽️ players.
We’ve got two different rotation exercises that train the trunk through different types of rotation and can help offset some of the effects of a long season.
Then we have back extensions, which are great for posterior-chain strengthening and building strength through the backside.
And finally, saw planks. They’re not just great for the abs. They also challenge the shoulder complex, making them a great option for ⚽️ players looking to stay strong and healthy year-round.
If you’re looking to get faster and stronger while staying healthy in-season and off-season, give me a follow.
So this is why I like adding rotational movements, especially for ⚽️ players.
Because of the demands of the sport, ⚽️ players tend to spend a lot of time in externally rotated positions, particularly through the lower extremities. One way we can create more balance is by giving the body more opportunities to access internal rotation.
The first exercise, the wall ball half-kneeling dribble, does exactly that. We’re creating an internal-rotation bias while also getting some shoulder adduction and a little decompression through the thoracic spine.
The half-kneeling rotational ball slam takes that a step further. We’re continuing to encourage internal rotation while the slam adds an element of oblique crunching, which is especially valuable for ⚽️ players.
Then we move into the standing rotational ball slam. Now we can be more aggressive with the movement. There’s more freedom through the feet, more pivoting, and more opportunity for the femur to rotate internally as we use the entire body to create force.
And finally, the regular ball slam. One of my favorite exercises for developing the anterior core because we’re generating force through the entire body and transferring that force into the slam.
If you’re a ⚽️ player looking to stay healthy in and out of season while getting faster and stronger, give me a follow.
Some of these are going to be some of my personal favorites and tools I use to improve the first step, especially when the goal is to create separation from an opponent.
For soccer players, this is obviously off-the-ball movement, but the more force we can apply through the desired positions and shapes, the faster we can get to our destination.
First up: sled sprints.
Sled sprints are phenomenal because they keep the body and torso relatively stable. This allows you to focus on driving through the legs like pistons. The idea of falling forward isn’t really there. Instead, you’re focused on pushing through the ground and using the glutes to create force.
Resisted accelerations are a little different. Your torso isn’t going to be as stable, so you have to figure out what to do with the arms. They’re great for developing coordination and the rhythm between opposite limbs. But these are two completely different exercises with different purposes.
Next is the hingey throw.
This is designed to exaggerate the hip motion during that first push of acceleration. It’s a combination of knee bend and hip hinge, but the throw exaggerates the hinging action.
Last is the lungy ball throw.
This one is designed to mimic more of a drop-down-and-push-out action. You’ll get a little more quad involvement while teaching the body to absorb and redirect force.
If you’re looking to get faster, stronger, and stay healthy both in-season and off-season, especially as a soccer player, give me a follow.
Click here to claim your Sponsored Listing.
Location
Category
Website
Address
821A Frostwood Dr
Houston, TX
77024