Started by EGordoAF, June 6, 2014 · 28 Replies · 14,727 Views
palmcron said:
With an interesting conclusion below:
Regarding AROM, strength training and low-intensity stretching were both superior to high-intensity stretching. It is likely that high-intensity stretching results in increased tension in the surrounding muscles, which limits the potential for improvements in active range of motion.
Hey everyone. Just want to let you all know that I stopped doing this exercise for a while to focus on glute activation. I do single leg hip thrusts, which imo is way better than glute bridges. After a week of doing these, I feel a difference when I squat. Not as much pressure on my knees and my hip flexors are feeling better. I actually do the couch stretch before I start the hip thrusts. I should've known that an imbalance in one area would affect the other.
Here's the part that really solidified single leg hip thrusts for me:
Remember, I haven't done this hip flexor exercise in a while. Well, I tried test my extended leg height recently and found that I've gained a few more inches on my height! Imagine when my glutes are fully functional and I try the exercise in this thread! So I recommend pairing the single leg hip thrust (which can be done on a couch or bed with bodyweight) with this hip flexor conditioning exercise.
The lesson that I've learned is that we need to take care of imbalances in our body in order to reach our potential.
I'm also curious about everyone's progress on this so far.
I've been lackadaisical in doing the hip flexor exercise, and haven't measured my extended leg height (before-after) with precision, so cannot attest to its efficacy as confidently as others on this thread can.
But will attempt a yogic variation of this hip thrust thing (doing the bridge with one leg on the floor while the other is raised) as I need as much glutenous activation as I can muster.
I haven't measured anything and this is confounded with my intensive straddle work of the past few months anyway, but I have picked these up as a daily thing and made good progress. Finding them most useful in telling the leg to lift properly from the hip, which I then find stays activated for straight leg compression work.