Bottom Up Hip & Knee – Advanced
Bottoms Up Training: The Advanced Knee and Hip
When I created the ‘basic’ version of this series, I mentioned that it was really hard to talk about the knee without talking about the ankle and the hip. In fact, you come across a lot of athletes with knee pain (luckily fewer of them are hockey players), but the knee really is not to blame. The knee just takes the brunt of crappy mechanics from the hip and ankle.
Since we already discussed advanced ankle strategies HERE, I am going to go ahead and discuss the knee in relation to the hip.
You see, as I mentioned before, the knee is a hinge joint; for the most part it just wants to bend and straighten. In fact, I would wager that none of you have ever injured your MCL without some sort of traumatic force – like a skater falling on you when you were in you vulnerable position like a butterfly or without going down awkwardly with your bodyweight behind you.
Probably more than a few of you have sprained your ankle by stepping off a curb the wrong way, (heck, I know someone who tore their Achilles tendon doing this) but I am thinking very few have torn their MCL this way.
In the basic version I talked mainly about mobility of the knee – flexion and extension and having full range of motion. We talked about it as it relates to the squat pattern.
Today I am going to give you 3 exercises that will help you progress to that symbol of the hip, knee and ankle working together in concert – the single leg squat to thigh parallel. Now, before I get started, let me remind you that some of us do not have knees that will allow us to safely do this exercise anymore.
Some of you adult goalies may have arthritis in your knees from wear and tear and the risk:reward ratio for you may be pretty slim so I would suggest you stay away. If you have an injury to a meniscus in your knee, then you should shy away from this one until you are sufficiently recovered and cleared by your physician or sport physiotherapist.
Finally, I will remind you that you must have mastered the skills from the basic version before you even think of moving on to this advanced version. Okay, here we go…