Ultimate Sandbag Exercises for Better Hip Mobility

It probably sounds funny to hear, but I can’t think a time in my life where flexibility was NOT an issue! Looking back though I think I know why and it isn’t the reason you might think. This has A LOT do with how we came up with the Ultimate Sandbag exercises to fix the same problems you are probably facing.

I can remember being in my high school weight room and struggling to squat well, or do a host of other exercises that required good mobility, flexibility, and oh, STABILITY.

Of course at the time I thought, like most, that better movement was simply a by product of more stretching. Heck, I think a lot of people today think the same way.

I can’t possibly tell you how much time over the years I wasted on just trying to stretch my way to better movement. It was obvious it wasn’t working, I wasn’t feeling better, but what else should I do?

Literally decades later I would find the answer and had the mixed emotions of being so mad that I didn’t know about this earlier and at the same time so excited that I had found a solution. Core tension!

Huh?

I’ve talked about it a million times in our description of DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises, but I see it is hard for people to still grasp how something like core tension relates to better flexibility.

This isn’t “philosophy by Josh” but rather the science of the body. It is the basis of the therapy, PNF, as proximal stability creates distal mobility.

In a paper by physical therapists, Kibler, Press, and Sciascia, they describe this principle as, “Core stability creates several advantages for inte- gration of proximal and distal segments in generat- ing and controlling forces to maximise athletic func- tion. The larger, bulkier muscles in the central core create a rigid cylinder and a large moment of inertia against body perturbation while still allowing a sta- ble base for distal mobility. In addition, it places most of the ‘engine’ of force development in the central core, allowing small changes in rotation around the central core to effect large changes in rotation in the distal segments, similar to the crack- ing of the end of a whip.”

So, it actually doesn’t make sense to really sit there and stretch if you are looking for true improvements in flexibility. If you want to relax, calm down the nervous system, help some recovery, that’s all good. However, we are talking about making you move better and that’s where these DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises come into play.

Why do they work so well? For one, we have added some traction of the joint which really helps a lot of people both feel where they should be moving from as well as how to create ground tension to activate the right muscles to help open up an area. In this case, a lot of hamstring and glute activation helps the hip flexors release.

There is a reason DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises are done differently even with classic exercises to hit how the body is actually designed!

Then adding a Core Ultimate Sandbag allows us to wake-up the core and use the lat/core/glute connection of the body to create that core stability. These simple actions of DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises not only improve your movement almost instantly, but they will help you be better prepared for your workouts as well. Try about 3-5 repetitions of each of these movements.

You don’t want to create too much fatigue so this is where doing less with these DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises is actually more!

If you love cutting-edge results like this, you will want to check out our DVRT Restoration program which is changing how people are training movement HERE

Kibler, W. Ben, Joel Press, and Aaron Sciascia. “The role of core stability in athletic function.” Sports medicine 36.3 (2006): 189-198.