The Hip Drive is a movement used in up to 70-80% of exercises you use in your workout. Therefore, it can’t be underestimated.
The Hip drive recruits the major and biggest muscles in your body including glutes, hamstrings, calves, abdominals and quadratus Lumborum.
It can also activate your Lats and Traps depending upon which exercise you are completing and how good your posture is.
Without a strong hip drive, you are going to be muscle up the weight by the use of your upper body, which will limit how heavy you will be able to reach and in turn limit your results. Doing so a missing hip drive will drastically raise the risk of injuries.
Lifts that can benefit from hip drive:
- Back Squats
- Front Squats
- Deadlifts
- Push Press
- Clean & Jerk
- Power Cleans
- Snatches
- Box Jumps
- Kettle Bell Swings
- Overhead squats
- Thrusters
Muscle Ups
Kipping Muscle Ups or Pull Ups can´t effectively be done without a strong hip drive. This is the part where you explode into the pull-up and is the most complex part of the muscle-up to master.
Squat
Marc Rippetoe, American strength training coach and author of Starting Strength explains the hip drive in the Squat:
If you drive your hips back, it will create a more horizontal back angle and turn the exercise into a ‘squat morning’.
Driving the hips up while maintaining back angle is the right way to get hip drive. The hips should go upward, not forward.
Mark Rippetoe visualizes “a chain hooked to your hips, pulling you straight up out of the bottom”.
Snatch & Clean
The Hip Drive in the Snatch or in the Clean is the most explosive phase of the entire lift.
As the bar passes the knees, maximal power and acceleration are applied between the mid-thigh and the hips. The power position refers to the point at which the body is raised in the athletic position – feet flat, hips loaded, chest high, back straight, and quads activated.
Jerk
Everyone has a limit on how much to press with the arms. What happens when the limit is reached? In a split jerk, , you have to learn how to drive your body down by using “tall jerks”when you reach that significant weight. Tall jerk is an exercise where you start with the bar at the top part of your forehead and you stand on your tippy toes. From there, you will drive your body into the split jerk position.
How to Cope With Fear and Anxiety in CrossFit Open Workouts
The post 4 Exercises That Show Why Hip Drive is Important for Crossfitters appeared first on BOXROX.