Have you ever heard the skeleton dance song? It’s a song that details how all of your bones are connected. One of the lyrics is “Your hip bone’s connected to your back bone”. Technically yes this is true! However we don’t want to move them like they’re connected. We often get lost and start moving our hips together with our lower back. Having these two body parts move together is not a good thing! We need to keep our rotational spine mobility independent of our hips. They should be separate and we want to make sure that they stay that way. Why is it important? We will answer that and give you a great exercise to make sure it stays as 2 separate movements.
How it Happens
When most people are turning they naturally bring their hips along for the ride. That means they let one hip come forward and the other slides back while they rotate. When we turn our spine ideally we should be able to separate this movement. That means we can turn without our hips moving at all. They should be able to stay strong and still as we rotate through our back. So Why does this happen? It’s natural. We don’t think about it and as our bodies start getting tight from everyday life we naturally compensate and get that extra movement through our hips.
Why Is it Bad?
Not isolating the movement of your hips and low back can cause major problems. It leads to stiffness and dysfunction in your entire lower body. This dysfunction can be described as tightness in your lower back and also impacts your hip flexors, and glutes. Because all of the muscles in our lower body are tight from improper movement patterns we end up with muscle imbalances. These muscular imbalances cause issues with other movement patterns and low back pain.
Improve Rotational Spine Mobility
We are going to go over a rotational exercise that targets making sure we keep these two parts of our body separate. The half kneeling twist with a single arm press is a great exercise that brings awareness to our hips and spine as well as throws in a bonus strength movement! It is all about making sure your hips stay pointing straight forward as you twist your spine. It takes core strength coupled with rotational stability. After you turn, you create a foundation to do a single arm press. That press continues to keep your rotational stability strong as you make sure not to flare your rib cage forward! That way you’re improving your thoracic spine flexibility and improving your movement patterns.
Watch This How To Video Here!
Try this exercise along with some other great spine mobility exercises. Good examples of this would be our thoracic rotation exercise and the Brettzel 1.0! Focus on keeping your hips separate from your rotational spine mobility!
New Mobility Challenge!
Next week we are releasing a new mobility challenge! We will be improving shoulder mobility and strength in an overhead position. If you have issues or pain bringing your arms overhead this is definitely going to be for you! Did you miss our last mobility challenge? Check it out here!
If your shoulders need a little more love than just a mobility challenge, try MDRx Shoulder program. It’s a 4 week rehabilitative program to help you get back to 100%!
