Overuse injuries frequently occur when we lack range of motion in important areas of the body. One of the most important areas of the body are your hips.
While you may not think about hip internal rotation (HIR), it’s an important aspect of injury prevention and performance training. Without sufficient hip internal rotation, the pelvis cannot move as far forward over the stance leg, which shortens your stride when running, sprinting and athletic movements.
Checking hip internal rotation helps you assess whether you have a normal range of motion. In this article, we review why hip internal rotation is critical, and how to check your range of motion.
Why is Hip Internal Rotation Important?
Hip internal rotation is the twisting movement of your thigh inward from your hip joint. It’s key for athletic movement in performance training. Having functional HIR is important for balance, and critical for avoiding pain or injury to back, hip and knee pain.
So, why exactly is hip internal rotation so important to test and improve? Having good internal rotation of the hip is important because it allows you to put force into the ground. Putting force in the ground is not only important to be able to stay upright as you move through the world, but also relevant in higher level activities like running, sprinting, jumping, etc.
Suppose you don't have internal hip rotation available. In that case, we end up using the other areas of our body to produce the force into the ground contributing to overuse in other areas.
If you try this twisting motion while standing, your foot should also turn so that your toes point toward the rest of your body.
Checking Your Hip Internal Rotation
To check your internal hip rotation, try this simple but effective method to test your internal hip range of motion.
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Sit down on a table with your legs dangling. Use your hip to rotate your ankle outward, while keeping the rest of your body still. You can also perform this test while lying down.
In Closing: Hip Internal Rotation
Hip internal rotation is an important aspect of injury prevention. Try the easy at-home test reviewed in this article to test your range of motion.
If you find your range of motion is limited and want to improve it, contact the Massachusetts physical therapists at Move Strong PT. We can answer your questions and provide tips on improving your range of motion and avoiding injury.
