You can do many different things to make planking more challenging, and one of these is a plank tweak to strengthen your hips. Try these tweaks if standard planks aren’t challenging you anymore or if you feel like something a little different.
Wall Plank Variations
This post will go through various Wall Plank variations that help rehabilitate the hip. Wall planks are a great way to build strength in the plank position without the strain on your joints of a usual plank. Hip injuries and pain can come from a variety of sources. Common hip injuries include the following. Labral tears are when the labrum, the seal that helps hold the hip joint together, tears. This can cause instability in the hip joint and sharp pain in the groin, thigh, or leg. Snapping hip (or iliopsoas impingement) is when the iliopsoas muscle becomes tight and stiff. The iliopsoas is your hip flexor muscle that runs along the Front of your hip.
CLICK HERE to watch the YouTube Video
Wall planks are a great way to build strength in the plank position without the strain on your joints of a usual plank. Hip injuries and pain can come from a variety of sources. This post will go through various Wall Plank variations that help rehabilitate the hip.
Common hip injuries include the following.
Labral tears are when the labrum, the seal that helps hold the hip joint together, tears. Snapping hip (or iliopsoas impingement) is when the iliopsoas muscle becomes tight and stiff. The iliopsoas is your hip flexor muscle that runs along the Front of your hip. This can cause instability in the hip joint and sharp pain in the groin, thigh, or leg.
If not enough stretching is done on the hip flexors, the muscles and tendons can get tight, and the tendon can snap over the labrum, potentially leading to a tear.
Bursitis
Bursitis occurs when the bursae in the hip joint become inflamed. Bursa is small, fluid-filled sacs near major joints that help to reduce friction between tissues. The two main types of bursitis in the hip are trochanteric bursitis and iliopsoas bursitis. Hip instability can occur from a traumatic accident or long-term overuse. Overuse injuries usually result from repetitive sports, dance, and ice skating. You may also experience hip pain from osteoarthritis, which results from the general wear and tear in the cartilage of your hip joint. When cartilage breaks down, bone rubs on the bone and can cause severe pain.
Avoid any exercises that cause sharp pain or that don’t feel right.
Wall Plank Position
Start in the Wall Plank position, standing an arm’s length away from the wall and coming down to your forearms. Your forearms should be below shoulder height. While in the Wall Front Plank and the Wall Side Plank positions, keep your shoulders, hips, and ankles in line, with your core engaged. Staying in this position is a great abdominal core exercise.
Wall Plank
Add a knee driver if you want to challenge the hip more and make the exercise more applicable to hip injury recovery. Add a knee driver by bringing the knee up while keeping the rest of your body in the same position. The movement is just happening at your hip, keeping the abdominal area tight and maintaining that good alignment with the rest of your body.
Wall Front Plank
Side Plank Position
Move from a Front Plank to a Side Plank. In the Side Plank position, one forearm is on the wall, and one side of your body is facing the wall. Bring your knee up, making sure that your knee is below hip height. Switch to your opposite leg. The supporting leg needs to keep the outer part of your hip working to keep the body in a straight line, which makes this a great exercise to rehabilitate the hip.
Wall Side Plank
Return to the front position with the knee driver and then go to the Other Side. Move from Front, to Side, to Front, and then to Side Plank again.
There you go! Do the Wall Plank and add that knee driver that will challenge the hip and work on hip stability which often decreases when you have hip pain, hip injury, or hip irritation.
Enter in your injury or pain. There is a good chance that I have an article, a video, or an interview that will help you overcome your injury and pain. Make sure to swing by ExercisesForInjuries.com.
Secondly, if you watch this on YouTube, head above and hit “Subscribe.” When you subscribe, you will get a video like this every couple of days where I talk about tips and tricks on overcoming injury and pain.
Thirdly, head down below hit “Like,” and leave me a question or comment.
Take care!
Rick Kaselj, MS
If you want to overcome and prevent back and lower body injuries, click here to check out the Best Gluteus Medius Exercises program.
