3 Things I Wish I'd Done With My Hips Before 40

Have you ever looked back into your past and thought, I wish I had done…?

We all have some regrets in life, but as long as we’re breathing we have an opportunity to make change.

Instead of looking back and wishing we had done something differently, why not change the present?

We can’t control the past.

We can’t predict or control the future.

But every moment we have is a moment where what we do affects both past and future.

If instead of wishing we had done something yesterday we just started today, we’d be one step forward. If instead of hoping for a different future we put in the effort in this moment, we can change our timeline.

Our Fitness, Strength, Flexibility, Mobility all hinges upon what we do right now in this moment.

So you didn’t walk, run, workout yesterday… what are you doing with today?

We have an infinite number of possibilities for our future. As we choose to move less in our daily life, we are placing constraints on ourselves.

I used to think nothing of my Hips in my 20’s and 30’s. I thought that just moving around at random was enough for my joint health, but it turns out it’s not enough. Our joints, just like anything else we train, requires specificity. If we aren’t doing the things that help us specifically improve our joints then we’re missing a major key!

So here’s 3 things that I wish I had done with my Hips back then that it’s not too late to start!

Number 1. - I wish I had moved them through their fullest range of rotation on a daily basis as a younger person. Rotation is the fundamental movement of our Hip Joint. Movement is critical to nourishing your joint and maintaining tissue health. Moving through common linear movements are not necessarily taking your joint through all of their possible movement paths often enough.

Try adding Hip CARs to your movement diet.

Number 2. - I wish I had focused on optimizing my joint function when I was younger and expanding range of motion. As we get older we tend to develop more and more constraints for movement. The likely causes are often due to the nature of our job or sport. We become what we repeatedly do or do not do. If we sit a lot, we become more able to sit. If we do a certain activity over and over we become more efficient at that.

Our body works in such a way that we accommodate. Essentially, our body wants to use the least amount of resources it can to get a task done. This is why being bedridden can quickly cause atrophy. Think of being immobilized in a cast. Your nervous system quickly says, well f*ck all that muscle… I don’t need to expend energy keeping that.

I lifted weights when I was younger which is half the battle, but focusing on connective tissue was a big missing piece. We can improve connective tissue health using a variety of different types of Isometrics. Remember our connective tissue supports our muscle tissue, not the other way around. Connective tissue develops slower than muscle, so we should probably spend more time developing it.

Here’s 3 setups I like to use to target isometrics for improving Hip Internal Rotation.

Number 3. - I wish I had looked at my tissues through a different lens other than the Biomechanics taught in school and still held onto by so many.

The mechanisms of how the body works was always taught in the form of levers and pulley systems. We were taught in physics that the relationships of our joints to lifting things were as simple as a machine. But we are NOT machines. We are complex organisms.

We are taught that the elbow and knee are hinges and the rotational aspects of both joints are neglected. This often informs the way we train these joints and rehab them as well. For example, we love doing Bicep and Hamstring Curls. But what about training the rotation of the elbow and knee?

Many of you reading this have probably never considered this.

Rotation of a joint or lack of rotation either grant or deny access to certain tissues. Limitations in rotation of your joints limit your ability to access the tissue associated with that rotational motion. Understanding that we can train a variety of 3

dimensional ranges as opposed to seeing the body in planes of motion presents new training opportunities.

Check out this video to get a visual understanding of what I mean.

They say that, when you know better do better. There’s no time for dwelling on what was or what wasn’t. All we have in the moment in front of us. Make the best of newfound knowledge and start making the small changes.

Warren Buffett often tells people to just dollar cost average and think long term. Of course it’s not in our nature to see the long game. Unfortunately we look back 30 years and say “I wish I had invested”. Well a little bit each day goes a long way in the long run. Start making the investment.

Move Better | Feel Better | Do More

Rich Thurman is a Strength & Conditioning Coach, with an emphasis on Mobility Training, based in San Francisco, CA. With over 20 years of coaching and education experience, Rich works to improve the lives of both his In Person and Virtual Clients.