4 Essential Hip Strengthening Exercises

If you're not working on strengthening your hips, you probably should be! There are a lot of different muscles in and around the hip joints and these muscles help stabilize your pelvis and legs during walking, running, and other movements. If your hip muscles are strong, you are less likely to experience pain in your hips, knees, ankles, and lower back.

Here are 4 essential exercises that help to strengthen the hips and prevent or reduce pain in the legs and back.

1. Lateral Step Downs. Stand sideways on a step and slowly lower one foot down to the floor. Gently tap the floor and then return to the starting postion. Try to keep most of your weight on the leg that is on the step.

2. Lateral Lunges. Take a step to the side and lunge into that knee. Make sure to keep both feet pointed straight ahead. 

3. Lateral Walks with a Band. Place a band around your ankles. Take wide side steps, keeping a slight amount of resistance in the band throughout the movement.

4. 3-Way Hip with a Band. Place a band around your ankles. Stand on one leg and tap the other foot forward, to the side, and then behind you.

Try to do 2-3 sets of 10 reps of each of the exercises!

These exercises are a great way to start working on hip strength.

If you want more exercises to work on building hip strength, check out my Hip Program. It progresses through 10 weeks of strengthening and mobility exercises!