Crocodile Twist for the health and readjustment of your hips.
The hips are the center of your body. They connect the lower body and the upper body to work as a unity. They provide stability, strength and flexibility to both halves. Misaligned hips will cause you a lot of troubles – pain in your low back, knees, shoulders or ankles, and possibly create some more serious future injuries.
If your hips are not properly aligned, your movement pattern is not correct and thus your joins are exposed to extra forces and frictions, especially on the hard, concrete courts of Los Angeles. It is extremely important to take a good care of your hips to keep them strong, flexible and properly aligned.
Because of the importance of the hips for your well-being and athletic performance, we’ve addressed them in the past articles:
- groin stretch, frog stretch, pigeon stretch, cats and dogs
- piriformis myo-fascial release,
- lunges and windmills.
Today is presented a simple stretch, that at the first sight might feel like it’s not worth of doing, but you will be amazed what you discover about your hips by doing it.
Crocodile Twist
Lie on your back, stretch your legs straight forward and bring your toes to wards the head. Spread your arms to the sides, 90 degrees to your body, palms down. Now put your left heel on a top of the right foot, between the big toe and the second toe. Keep your feet flexed at all times.
Now tighten the quadriceps of both legs and start lifting the left hip off the floor, and keep twisting until the left hip points toward the ceiling. Keep your upper body relaxed, and turn you head to the opposite direction (left). If you cannot twist your hips completely at this time, that’s OK - one day you will be able to do it. Keep your quadriceps tight, contract your butt as well, breathe deeply and hold the stretch for 30-60 seconds. Reverse the feet and repeat the stretch to the other side.
You will most probably feel different locations with tightness - your hamstrings, adductors, knees or low back. Just keep repeating this stretch until it gets comfortable. Keep doing it after your tennis practice, to readjust your hips to the proper alignment. The Crocodile Twist is great because it makes the muscles of your spine to rotate and relax, while the muscles of the hip are contracting at the same time – similar movement that you want to achieve over and over on the tennis court.
If you liked reading this article, feel free to subscribe with the button above, so you wouldn't miss any future great articles on fitness and injury prevention. Until then, read also tips how to
- Do the myo-fascial release for your feet, booty, and lower legs.
- Strengthen your booty with lunges, squats, and windmills.
- Work on your agility, coordination and balance with some fun footwork drills.
- And because the weather and conditions in Los Angeles are very hot, don’t forget to drink a lot of water, because it will increase your performance and well-being.
- And get a good sleep for maximum performance!
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