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By Matthew Ibrahim

“My lower back hurts.”

How often have you heard someone say that? I’d guess a lot of the time.

I would estimate that 95% of this could be fixed if people learned how to move their hips the right way.

The Hip Hinge is Everywhere

A simple task such as bending down to get your groceries involves the necessity to hinge at your hips. Although this is the desired pattern of movement we want, it isn’t quite always what we get.

If we were to take a poll and ask 10 people what should move first when they were to sit down in a chair, I can guarantee you that we would get 9 people saying that the knees should bend first. That’s wrong.

I think this is very important to note, not because of the misguided and miseducated notion on what should bend first, but more along the lines of people simply not having enough awareness of their body. That’s a monumental gap missing in today’s society. People just simply don’t know how their body should move.

We need to fix that.

I think a great start would be learning the hip hinge pattern first, since it’s one of the most visited movements in life, regardless of age, activity level and lifestyle.

When you’re about to sit down in a chair, think of your hips as the drivers and your knees as the passengers: your hips initiate the movement and act as the primary movers here, while your knees act as the secondary movers in the movement and come along for the ride.

Although sitting down in a chair is a start, we can also see the hip hinge in many other aspects in life. The hinge occurs in plenty of daily life activities (i.e., bending down to garden the flowers, bending down to pick …read more

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