At the start, I outlined how I had allowed my desk job to cause my posture to deteriorate such that I developed an overly excessive lumbar lordosis and an accompanying anterior pelvic tilt.  I explained that I was going to attack this problem with several different techniques, including:

• Stretching
• Soft tissue work
• Activation drills
• Strength exercises

What I haven’t done yet is to set out the programme that I’ve been following that involves all of these techniques.

My hip mobility programme

This is the programme I am doing at the moment.  It is by necessity slightly shorter than I would like but there are only so many hours in the day.  If I catch myself lying on the sofa for more than a few minutes in an evening, I will often get up and do an impromptu mobility session.  But it’s rare that this happens…

Every morning

Soft tissue work

• roll psoas major with baseball
• roll quads with foam roller
• roll adductors will foam roller
• roll tensor fascia latae with foam roller

What tends to happen here is that I grab both the baseball and the foam roller and lie down on the carpet.  I use the baseball on the psoas major for a bit and then switch to the foam roller to do my quads.  After that, I will generally do the adductors and the tensor fasciae latae on the same leg before swapping legs.  It just seems to be more efficient that way.

I will usually count the number of rolls back and forth rather than counting seconds and I try for around 10 good rolls per exercise, which probably takes around 30 seconds. 

Stretching

• lunge stretch
• standing lunge stretch
• groin stretches

Once I’ve rolled, I go on to stretching. I always do soft tissue work before I stretch.  The sports massage therapists that I have worked with in the past advised this.  I understand that the reason is that it is better to stretch a  muscle once it has had the knots removed rather than trying to stretch a knotted muscle.  I would like to spend longer stretching but this is where my time starts to get short.

At the moment, I am only doing each stretch once on each leg for 30 seconds each.  Ideally, I would prefer to do each stretch 3 times.

Activation drills

• Plate squats

I outlined a number of activation drills for the glutes and the abs but I also mentioned that I don’t tend to do many any more.  This is mostly because I do quite a lot of glute and ab strengthening work in my programmes.  I do, however, really like the way the plate squat feels.  My whole posterior chain seems to work more efficiently after doing this drill.

I usually just grab a plate as I get up from the stretches and do 5 reps going as low as I can without tucking my lower back.  As you might have guessed from my reference to carpet earlier in the article, I do this programme in my bedroom before getting in the shower in the morning.  So there is a mirror I can use to check my form.

Strength exercises

• Weighted pistols
• Weighted glute bridges 
• Weighted hanging leg raises

I have incorporated the above strengthening exercises into my regular workouts.  The weighted pistols are reportedly one of the best exercises for working the glutes and I definitely feel the weighted glute bridges in the right place!  Weighted hanging leg raises are the only specific abdominal exercise that I really feel in my abs (I do feel my abs after picking up a sandbag but that’s another matter).  You can see how I do these exercises in my workouts posts (and they tend to vary from month to month) but at the moment I am doing:

• Weighted pistols – 10 sets of 3 reps on 1:30mins with 25kg
• Weighted glute bridges - 10 sets of 4 reps on 1:00min with 50kg
• Weighted hanging leg raises – 10 sets of 3 reps on 1:00min with 2kg

Well, that’s what I’m doing at the moment.  I’m going to start assessing my improvement soon and I’ll let you know how it goes!

• Stretching
• Soft tissue work
• Activation drills
• Strength training

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Strength training for increased hip mobility

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve allowed my posture to deteriorate recently and I was shocked at how bad it had become when I saw my holiday snaps (check out the lower back arch!).

To reduce the classic “S” curve that I have developed, I am working on increasing the strength of the two muscle groups that will tip my pelvis into optimal alignment again, the abdominals and the glutes.

Not a good look

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Strength training for improving hip mobility and lumbar lordosis

When it comes to improving my hip mobility and reducing lumbar lordosis, I am looking to increase the strength of my abdominal and gluteal muscles  in order to change my posture and overall movement patterns.  I want to make the abdominal and gluteal muscles stronger so that they tend to pull my pelvis out of anterior tilt and into optimal alignment.

For the glutes, the best exercises I know of that strengthen the glutes are the weighted pistol and the weighted glute bridge. For more reading about this, Mike Reinold has some interesting data that he has reviewed that shows that single leg squats are the most effective exercises for recruiting the glutes.  For the abdominals, the best exercise I have ever used (and the only one that I ever feel in my abs) is the weighted hanging leg raise. 

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Weighted pistols

You know what pistols are.  A true weighted pistol would be a pistol on the ground while holding dumbbell (or kettlebell or weight plate).  I tend to do mine off a 12″ box for two reasons.

Firstly, it means I can be a bit more relaxed about where I hold the weights, which helps me with balance (I used to be a swimmer, so on dry land I am about as useful as a penguin).  I tend to hold them out forwards and slightly lower than I would if I were doing a pistol off the ground.

Secondly, it means I can be a bit more relaxed about where the inactive leg goes, so it tends to drop a bit.  This means that I concentrate on the lift rather than holding one leg up in the air.  It is also much better for my lower back as the easier angle means that there is less lumbar rounding.

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Weighted glute bridges

These are just like the unweighted glute bridges I mentioned in my article about activation drills.  But with weight.

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Weighted hanging leg raises 

I was over the moon the first time I did a fully straight-legged hanging leg raise from a pull-up bar.

But when I discovered that it was possible to weight them using little more than a climbing sling and a dumbbell weight plate, that opened a whole new world.  Basically, you double up and loop a standard 2ft sling through a small dumbbell weight and then put your feet through the loops like this.

Try them if you find hanging leg raises too easy.  You’ll be amazed at how far a little weight goes when it’s suspended at the end of your legs…