Weighted Hip Airplanes

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If you haven't watched the open chain hip circles or closed chain hip circles yet, make sure to check them out.

The open chain hip circles are a great way to get the hips moving and can be considered primarily a range of motion exercise, or a mobility drill if you want to call it that.

Closed chain hip circles teach and train us to utilize that range of motion under load so that you can control the range of motion that you do have. Some people call the range of motion you can control your mobility. I find it interesting how challenging it is for us to all agree on one definition of mobility and one definition of stability. It actually confuses me greatly.

Clearly the definition of mobility of a joint is how far a joint can move without the muscles around the joint contracting. Meaning, mobility of a joint is only limited by passive structures: bone, ligament, scar tissue, soft tissue approximation, etc.

If you wanted to get extremely technical, you could call what I just described above 'passive mobility' and 'active mobility' would be the range of motion when your muscles could contract.

Additionally, the term stability can be defined as either active stability (muscularly controlled...and I would tend to call this 'motor control' or control of movement) and passive stability (meaning, your shoulder doesn't dislocate because the socket, labrum, capsule, and bone prevent it from dislocating).

Ok..I digress. I have been thinking a lot about why we can't just all agree on a series of definitions on concepts and words we talk about so frequently.

Point being, once you have the range of motion you need and you've built up the balance and controlled range, we can strengthen it using a weighted hip airplane. This drill also teaches you how to relax your load bearing shoulder girdle as you rotate.

You are having to maintain trunk stiffness, controlled motion at your hip, and some degree of relaxation of your shoulder. A great combination. Advanced though.

That's what I have for you this week. Go do some weighted hip airplanes and let me know in the comments how they went.

Ryan