Hip Mobility: The Crossroads of Athleticism
When your hips are mobile, you move like an athlete — smooth, powerful, and pain-free.
When they’re restricted, everything above and below them starts to suffer.
At FIT, we treat hip mobility as one of the non-negotiables of performance.
Because if the hips can’t move, something else will — and that “something else” is usually what ends up injured.
The Problem with Modern Movement
We were built to squat, crawl, climb, and sprint.
But most of us spend more time sitting than moving — and the hips pay the price.
When you sit for hours every day, your hip flexors shorten, your glutes lengthen and weaken, and your pelvis tilts forward, changing the geometry of how you move.
The result:
Hips that can’t extend fully.
Movement that feels tight or restricted.
Force leaking through the low back and knees instead of being expressed through the hips.
That’s why both adults and athletes walk around with stiff hips — they’re not broken, they’re adapted to a modern lifestyle that keeps them in flexion all day.
Why Hip Mobility Matters
The hips are a ball-and-socket joint — designed to move freely through multiple planes of motion: flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, internal rotation, external rotation.
They’re supposed to be mobile. The joints above and below — the lumbar spine and the knees — are supposed to be stable.
When the hips lose mobility, the body has to make a trade.
That trade almost always ends in pain.
If the hips can’t move:
The low back starts compensating with extra rotation or flexion.
The knees start twisting and collapsing to find range.
So if you see hip restriction, you can bet there’s a pathology above or below that joint waiting to happen.
Tight hips? Expect low-back tightness or knee discomfort soon after.
Mobile hips? You just made both of those areas safer.
Mobility Is Strength You Can Control
Here’s the part most people get wrong:
Mobility isn’t about passive flexibility — it’s about controllable range.
You don’t just want a joint that can move; you want a joint that’s strong in motion.
That’s why at FIT, hip mobility work always includes loaded and active movement — not just stretching.
We use bi- and unilateral squat variations to develop mobility under load, and frontal plane work (like lateral lunges and side squats) to challenge stability and range in new directions.
Bilateral squats teach you to coordinate both hips evenly.
Split squats and rear-foot elevated squats reveal side-to-side asymmetries and build hip control.
Side squats open the frontal plane — the one most adults neglect but every athlete depends on.
Mobility without strength is useless; strength without mobility is dangerous. You need both.
Above and Below: The Chain Reaction
When the hips are restricted, the entire kinetic chain gets distorted.
Above the hips:
The lumbar spine begins to rotate and flex excessively. You’ll see chronic low-back tightness, disc irritation, or overactive erectors trying to stabilize motion that should’ve come from the hips.
Below the hips:
The knees lose their clean hinge pattern. They start absorbing torque and rotation instead of force in a straight line. Over time, this leads to patellar tracking issues, meniscus stress, or tendon pain.
So if you’re treating low-back or knee pain without addressing the hips, you’re chasing symptoms, not solving the problem.
Mobility and Performance
For athletes, hip mobility is the bridge between power and precision.
Every sprint, jump, or cut begins with clean hip movement.
If the hips can’t internally and externally rotate, you can’t properly load or unload force — you just end up muscling through positions instead of flowing through them.
For adults, hip mobility determines how easily you move through daily life — how you squat down to pick something up, climb stairs, or even walk without stiffness.
When your hips move well:
You generate more power from the ground.
You reduce strain on the low back and knees.
You unlock a smoother, more efficient stride.
Mobility isn’t optional — it’s your movement insurance policy.
How We Build It at FIT
Every FIT session includes dedicated hip mobility drills — but not random ones.
We use movements that train strength and stability through range, like:
90/90 hip rotations (shinbox) for internal and external control.
Split squats to improve single-leg control and range.
Dynamic openers like world’s greatest stretch or adductor rock-backs.
These aren’t “extra.” They’re the reason our athletes and adults move better, lift cleaner, and stay healthier.
Bottom Line
Your hips are the hub of human movement. When they get shutdown, so do you.
When they move freely, you can squat deeper, run faster, and live without the stiffness that’s become “normal” for most people.
At FIT, we train the hips to move like they were designed to — mobile, stable, and powerful in every direction.
Because the better your hips move, the better you move.