Monday 7/20

Hinge Pattern
Unlike the squat pattern, the hinge is hip dominant and involves very little knee flexion.  It takes the hips through end range of motion, horizontally.  It is side to side. Think driving your hips backwards as if you were trying to bump your butt on a wall behind you.  It should create tension in your hamstrings to then use the hips for forward propulsion when performing deadlifts, kettlebell swings and hang position Olympic lifts.  As you draw your hips back, your chest will naturally be pulled forward to a point where it is just slightly above parallel to the ground.

If you try and achieve the movement pattern of today’s exercises by squatting, you will be targeting the wrong muscles entirely and setting off an incorrect and unsafe chain of movement from the start.

It is critical that you drive the hips back with very minimal knee flexion altogether.  Your shins should be close to vertical and your knees should be nowhere near forward of your toes for any of the movements mentioned above.

To borrow a cue from Coach Robby, think about pulling back the bow of an arrow.  The tension in the bow is the tension in your hamstrings.