Steve Palazzolo
PGA Professional, Philadelphia Section
As 80% of Americans will experience chronic pain at some point during one's lifetime, we need not be too alarmed for the human body is so RESILIENT! This is not ACUTE PAIN, but CHRONIC PAIN!
Chronic pain is any pain lasting 12+ weeks while acute pain is any pain that alerts us to possible injury. This is an astounding percentage and we must understand the things we do on a daily basis to avoid finding ourselves in this circumstance. I experienced chronic pain after so many injuries which resulted in hip and back pain persisting for 4-5 months. I thought that there was no solution but I found concepts produced by Eric Goodman that got me out of pain and avoided surgery! Goodman has worked with people of all ages and structure, professional athletes, and Olympic athletes as well!
Before we delve into the proper hip hinge, we must understand that chronic pain is a result of
- Excess sitting
and...
- Poor movement patterns over time
Let's simply discuss poor movement patterns over time in this post. Helping reduce problems with excess sitting will come in future posts. But for now, we must understand that there is no such thing as bad movement, just movement done poorly.
The utilization of the posterior chain, including the neck, back, butt, hamstrings, and heels and a BRACED spine will allow for the essential movement of hinging at the hips. When completing everyday things such as forward bending and side bending, most people will create movement patterns that begin with the BENDING IN THE LOWER SPINE instead of bracing the spine and using your core muscles to perform the action. A lifetime of this movement will wreak havoc on your joints, your spine, your posture, and will result in chronic pain. This idea must be portrayed precisely as Eric Goodman suggests,
'Unless some blunt force trauma or accident happened, your back problem started long before the pain.'
Now, let's take a look at some pictures to understand the hip hinge.
If we understand the hip hinge as the common denominator for those who live a life free of pain, we solve most of the problem.
THE BODY HINGES ON AVERAGE 3500 TIMES PER DAY! This is why it is so important that the hinge is done PROPERLY!
Here are examples of proper and improper hip hinges to help you understand the longevity of movement and the removal of pain.
Here, we see a proper hip hinge that can be compared to a deadlift, one of the most significant human movements. The bag is picked up with a braced spine and a braced core. There is no rounding or arching of the back.
Here, we see a rounding of the back with heavy strain on the neck as well. The legs are straighter and the butt is over the knee. The butt does not shoot back to balance the act being performed. This repeated movement will lead to pain.
I found some time to take some pics while babysitting my cousin. Here, the baby is picked up properly using a hip hinge as described earlier.
To all those parents out there, remember how important it is to pick up children properly. There is a rounding of the spine in order to reach down and pick up the child. Again, this is an improper hip hinge.
Even during activities like brushing our teeth, we find the need for a proper hip hinge. You can see here that my butt shoots back in order to balance out a small hip hinge with a braced spine.
Here, we see straight legs with the butt directly over our knees. The butt does not shoot back to balance a small hip hinge and therefore, the spine bends and the front of the body is shortened.
There are so many ways to properly hip hinge. Here is another!
Here is another way you can properly hip hinge to pick something up off the ground!
Hope you found this article helpful in understanding movement patterns during your day. A braced spine with a braced core will lead to wonderful methods of movement. This is a concept we call 'co-contraction' where the spine and core muscles are working together to perform an action. We will discuss this in later posts. These concepts also apply to the squat. We are not taking away the significance of your '1 hour workout' each day. We are simply increasing the significance of how you view movement throughout your day. It comes down to how you move and how you rest AT ALL TIMES, not just if you go to the gym once a day for an hour! You should still go to the gym or workout at home each day:P
Buy ERIC GOODMAN'S book for $9.99, titled 'Foundation Training' to learn so much more!