Make the New Year’s resolution and never start a workout without a proper warm-up! These four exercises will help improve hip mobility and reduce your chance of injury!
- Windshield Wipers
Sit on the floor with your knees bent with your arms behind you for support, and try to get your knees to touch the floor by shifting left to right. You can repeat this motion up to 10-20 times or time yourself for about 30 seconds. - Kneeling Lunge
A typical runner’s stretch but can still be beneficial. Get into a lunge position. With your back knee on the floor, lean forward with your chest high and feel a stretch on the top of the back leg. Hold for 30 sec and alternate on the opposite side. Repeat 3 times. - Fire Hydrant
Get on all 4’s. Lift your leg to the side, keep your knee bent, bring your knee toward your chest, then bring your knee back into the quadruped position. Do this forward and backward. Perform this 5-10x on each side. - Buddha Stretch
Sit into a deep squat, hands in a prayer position, and rock side to side. Take a deep breath in and out and try to sit deeper into the stretch. Rest in this position 3 times for 30 seconds.
Perform these stretches before a lower-body workout. You will start to notice a decrease in soreness and improved tolerance in your workout!
Shakyra Cooper, PT, DPT, Cert DN
