Awesome Hip Mobility Drill – Sweep the Leg

Awesome Hip Mobility Drill – Sweep the Leg

In today’s article, I will show you a very simple, yet highly effective hip mobility drill.  We speak relentlessly on how to warm-up and the importance of pre-training and pre-sport prep, but many times athletes and coaches miss another very important point – they forget the importance of fluid movements.

Some of my favorite coaches – Steve Maxwell, Scott Sonnon and Matt Wichlinski – all know the importance of incorporating more fluid (animal-like) movements into their fitness protocols.  While structured warm-up exercises performed in linear movement patterns and strict adherence to form prepare us for strict strength training movements – more fluid movements teach us how our body is supposed to move.  Bruce Lee said, “be like water” and we can learn our biggest lessons on athletic development from this statement.

Here are two articles I wrote previously discussing the concept:

http://www.dieselsc.com/change-your-warm-up-forever/

http://www.dieselsc.com/how-to-warm-up-a-new-look-at-foam-rolling/

What you’ll find is that athletes who are able to hit a perfect “strict” warm-up exercise, such as the squat-to-stand, still are unprepared to move freely with multi-planar hip movements.  In fact, they’ll also demonstrate poor work capacity when challenged outside of their comfort zone – even for simple fluid bodyweight movements.

Squat to Stand

Sweep the Leg (Johnny)

Here is a movement developed by strength coach Brad Martin here at Diesel – it is called Sweep the Leg.  It is basically a dynamic glute stretch.  What you’ll notice is that the athlete will move from an extended lunge position with the lead leg – almost in a strider or spiderman crawl – and then sweep through for the glute stretch.  This will be repeated over and over.

You’ll also notice 3 important technique cues:

1.  Brad is relaxed and there is very minimal tension

2.  The movement is fluid and continuous

2.  Special attention is paid to breathing and exhaling into the movement and stretch

Try this movement out and leave a comment with how it went.  Were you able to do it unrestricted and fluidly?  Did you get winded fast?