Integrating the Hips and Back Into Core Training

By: Steve Ramsbottom BHK, CSCS, PFLC
Performance Institute

By now, almost everyone has heard of core training and have either seen or heard of the tremendous benefits this type of training has to offer for performance, rehabilitation, and injury prevention. When a sport specific approach integrated with core training is applied to your training, your balance, strength, agility, and power will improve.

Sports specificity means the integration of functional movements in a program that also challenges a players' balance, improves posture, and teaches proper core activation. Using body weight in conjunction with Swiss balls or elastic tubing can effectively mimic and challenge movement patterns used in sport. Exercises using these types of equipment can be modified in difficulty depending on the fitness level of the athlete. On-going adaptation and upgrading of a conditioning program is necessary so the athlete is significantly challenged, and can continue to achieve performance enhancements.

The following exercises will effectively help target the hips and core. These movement patterns mimic many sports related movements and can help increase performance, while helping to prevent injury. As sport often involves cutting, decelerating, and explosive movements, it is imperative that your body's support structure has been properly prepared to handle the loads and strains necessary. Try these exercises and take a step towards one of the most important aspects in sport development.

DANA SQUAT

• Perform a single leg squat with 1 leg
• Keep the inside leg up and push that knee into the ball that is supported against the wall
• Keep weight through the opposite heel
• Keep hips and shoulders square
• Targets: legs and hip stabilizers

DEAD LIFT AND TWIST

• Stand on one leg holding a medicine ball
• Keep shoulder blades down and together
• Pull core in and up
• Keep working leg slightly bent
• Keep back neutral
• Lean forwards towards the floor and rotate the shoulders and hips to the open side
• Targets: hamstrings, glutes, and core stabilizers

SINGLE LEG HAMSTRING CURL AND TWIST

• Lye on the ground with one foot on the ball and the opposite foot up in the air
• Pull the ball in towards the body
• Push the hips up so the shoulders, hips, and knees are in a straight line
• Twist across the body while keeping the hips up
• Targets: hamstrings, glutes, low back, thoracic and core stabilizers

1 LEG BOSU SQUAT

• Stand on a Bosu with the dome side down
• Perform a single leg squat
• Keep the non-working leg up at 90 degrees
• Keep hips and shoulders square
• Pull core in and up
• Work within a perfect range, where there is no collapsing of the knee
• Targets: quads, glutes, and core stabilizers

1 LEG CABLE ABDUCTION AND EXTERNAL ROTATION

• Attach a cable or tubing to an ankle
• Keep support leg bent
• Pull the leg away from the body and turn the foot away on extension
• Pull core in and up
• Targets: hip stabilizers both on the working and support leg simultaneously

GLUTE MED. WALK

• Attach tubing around the ankles
• Keep hips and shoulders square
• Take a medium sized step laterally with the front leg
• Resist and slowly let the back leg return to the starting position
• Targets: hips stabilizers

SWISS BALL BACK EXTENSION

• Keep feet up against a wall with hips on top of an anti-burst ball
• Keep a slight bend in the knees
• Pull the trunk up vertebrae by vertebrae up to a parallel position
• Pause at the top for a 2 count
• Targets: spinal erectors

For more information on how to improve your game through sport-specific conditioning, contact a Strength and Conditioning Specialist from Performance Institute at Ice Sports 8-Rinks at 604-291-9941 or or by email.