NFL Player Mark Parson Demonstrates Cornerback Speed Drills
HIP ABDUCTORS
If you are an athlete wants faster foot speed or wants to improve lateral quickness or has trouble quickly getting into dominant athletic position, then weak hip abductors just might be the problem.
NFL Player Mark Parson Demonstrates Cornerback Speed Drills
HIP ABDUCTORS
If you are an athlete wants faster foot speed or wants to improve lateral quickness or has trouble quickly getting into dominant athletic position, then weak hip abductors just might be the problem.
The Gluteus Maximus, if you recall, was also an extensor of the hip and like most muscles in the body, they have multiple functions. The Gluteus Medius, while also and abductor of the hip, can internally rotate the hip with the anterior fibers and externally rotate the hip with its posterior fibers.
The Gluteus Minimus and Tensor Fascia Latae also medially rotate the hip along with their abduction ability.
Hip abduction, along with its counterpart, hip adduction, are movements that are typically associated with side to side, or lateral, movements in sports. This occurs, for example, where an infielder in baseball prepares themselves in anticipation for lateral movement to get into better position to field a ground ball. Figure 3.
It also occurs while playing defense in basketball where you have to constantly react to your opponents change in position.
Slow Feet? Not really. More like slow hips.
Many times when a player is criticized for being slow you will often hear that “he can’t move his feet fast enough” or, “he or she has slow feet”. But is this really a correct statement?
All movements in the legs or lower extremities begin at the hip joint and so what we have here is more of a ‘symptom’ of a problem rather than the actual cause.
Slow feet are a result of slow or weak hip muscles. If the muscles surrounding the hip joint are not strong enough to move the weight of the entire leg, the speed and quickness of the entire lower extremity, including the feet, will suffer.
There is little you can do to the actual muscles of the foot that will make you a faster athlete. That all takes place higher up in the hip joint. So if you happen to be an athlete with “slow feet”, don’t look too far down your leg for a solution.
Your best and only bet would be to work on strengthening and quickening your hip muscles, including the hip abductors and hip adductors as well as the hip extensors, hip flexors, internal hip rotators and external hip rotators.
Hip Abduction Machine
Many of you reading this are perhaps familiar with the hip abduction machines found at your local gym. See Figure 5.
Because the machine shown above puts you in a sitting position with the pads contacting the outside of your knee, the length of the lever, i.e. bone, pushing against the pads is limited to the length of your thighs.
So while these machines are okay for exercising your hip abductors, it would be better for you to train them through a resistance acting further down around your ankles because then the length of your entire lower extremity is being utilized rather than about half of it.
Why Bands are More Effective than the Abductor Machine
When you train your hip abductors this way, you will be using a longer lever, or moment arm, which will enable you to supply greater stress to the hip abductors.
Plus, by training them through a force acting around your ankles you are also helping to stabilize and strengthen the muscles surrounding the lateral side of your knee as well. This is the best way to correct slow feet and as an athlete, you will want to always look for ways to maximize your workouts.
Many of you may have actually tried to train your hip abductors this way by attaching a cable around your ankle while pulling on a a stack of weights. What you may have found is that your initial lack of coordination and strength in the legs and hip muscles caused an uneasy feeling while doing this and so you never really continued to pursue the exercise.
There is a far better way to attack the hip abductors through your ankle joints than the standard weight and pulley machines.
The Run Faster Speed Training Program has several unique exercises that use the resistance band with an isometric training strategy that trains them in a very safe and efficient manner. That’s because the amount of tension and force that can be directed and focused on your hip abductors is limited only to the amount you are willing to apply. And the result is faster “foot speed” and lateral quickness so you become a quicker and better player.
