How to Perform the Hip External Rotation
Table of Contents
What's Exactly a Hip External Rotation
The Hip external rotation is a movement of the hip joint that involves turning the hip or thigh away from the body. In other words, it's the rotation of the femur (the long bone in your thigh) in the hip socket in a manner where your knee and foot turn outwards.
How to Do Hip External Rotation/External Rotation of Hip
Be in a standing position
Lift your knee to about hip level
Rotate your leg towards the outside of your body
When the leg cannot rotate any further begin to lower the leg to ground level
Repeat this process on both sides
Benefits of the Hip External Rotation/External Rotation of Hip
There are multiple benefits of the hip external rotation. It’s a great dynamic warm-up to loosen the hip joint and surrounding muscles. It’s very important to loosen the hip joints to prepare for exercise, daily activities, and to prevent injury and degenerative diseases. Another benefit of doing the hip external rotations is to stretch the tight muscles surrounding the hip joint. A lot of people suffer from tight and weak muscles around their hip and low back area due to inactivity or a sedentary lifestyle i.e sitting down for long periods of time at a desk. The following exercises will assist in releasing tight and weak hips.
Muscles Worked While Performing The Hip External Rotation/External Rotation of Hip
Quadrates femoris
Gemellus superior and inferior
Why Hip External Rotations Are Useful
The hip external rotations can be used for multiple reasons such as a dynamic warm-up to prepare the joints for exercise, use it in the morning to wake up the muscles around the joint to prepare for the day ahead. It also helps to release current tight and weak muscles surrounding the hip joint. All these reasons will improve the function of the hip joint and prevents tightness, weaknesses, and diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis.
Variations of The Hip External Rotation/External Rotation of Hip
Walking Hip External Rotation
How to perform this variation:
Begin in a standing position
Lift your knee to hip level
Externally rotate knee towards outside of the hip
Bring leg down in a walking motion in front of you
Step forward and continue on
This variation is for advanced people who want to challenge this balance and stability as well as performing this exercise.
Hip External Rotation Against a Wall
How to preform this variation is to
Begin in a standing position with your back against a wall
Lift your knee to hip level
Rotate knee outside of hip joint
Then bring the leg down
This variation is beneficial for people who struggle with balance and lack of ankle stability.
Common Names The Hip External Rotation is known by
External Rotation of the Hip
External Hip Rotation
External Rotation Hip
