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Today's the Day: Blog

Hip Abductors!

Posted: Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

I stayed up late last night trying to catch the end of the premiere of "Dancing With The Stars". I have never been one to sit and watch the show, nor do I plan my evening around catching the routines, but I was intrigued by some of the competitors and was curious to see how everything would turn out. For those of you out of the reality TV loop Melissa, the girl Jason (The Bachelor) proposed to and then broke up with on national TV was asked to join the show, 48 hours prior to the premiere, filling in for an injured Nancy Odell. Melissa had 48 hours, that's it, about 3 weeks less than any of her competitors, and she pulled it off with flying colors. Granted she has a dance background, having been a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, but she was all smiles and took the enormous challenge of dancing in front of 20 million people in stride. I wonder if Jason and Molly caught a glimpse. I was excited to see Shawn Johnson, the American Olympic gymnast who helped capture gold in Beijing, perform as well, who by the way is the youngest participant on the show ever.

I figured I would mention dancing as a nice segue into Today's The Day, which focused on the importance of stretching and strengthening your hip abductors and flexors. Rob Matthews, the Fitness Director at the Bariatric Medical Institute wanted to talk about the importance of working the smaller muscles which have a huge impact on our movement in our everyday lives.

So whether you’ll be hitting the golf courses, walking and swinging or hitting the ice for a pick up game of hockey keep in mind that you should be paying attention to the hips…

Hip abductors and adductors - These are the muscles of the inner and outer thigh. The abductors are on the outside and move the leg away from the body. The adductors are on the inside and pull the leg across the centerline of the body.

Rob had us lying on our sides, lifting the top leg up about 8-10 times, then he had us circling the leg in one direction for a few repetitions, then reversing the direction… You should at this point be feeling a slight burn. You'd be surprised to see just how weak our hips are (I know I was a little surprised to see how weak mine had become). Switch sides and repeat on the other leg.

Here are a few examples from the web:

http://www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/hip-abductors

For more information on Rob and BMI you can check out their website at www.bmimedical.ca.

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