Always thought the key to getting full extension was therapy, relaxation and general strength. Do these things along with hip flexor involvment in abdominal circuits take care of strengthening TFL,RF.psoas? Heres an article from today at elitefts.com
The exercises shown will not help your sprint speed, and they wont do a lot for the hip[ flexors either.
Unfortunatley, the psoas are a complex muscle group that would require pages and pages to explain what does and what does not help them. (And half of those pages would be the chore of debunking myths.)
Here’s a few points (and no way near the full scope of the subject.)
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Standing cable flexion knee lifts and standing bungee cord knee lifts are a bad idea.
(the more resistance you use, the more it becomes an isometric strength exercise for hamstroings and calves of the support leg on the ground. Do you really want isometric endurance in that position for your hamstrings which need to be the most dynamic muscle?) That for starters. -
The more weight you lift in those exercises, the more your form suffers in that very exercise. The extra weight, tempts you to move in to posterior pelvic tilt, in order to still raise the knee to an apreciable hieght. But this would be conning yourself. The thigh angle relative to the pelvis (that is now posterior tilted) is actually a ‘low’ knee. That would be fine if it wasn’t so slow, and the support leg wasn’t bracing so intensely that your hamstring tendons become stiff as bridge cables, and loosing compliancy.
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There’s more, but it takes too long.
Of the three main exercises, the worst is the standing knee flexions. The second worst is the theraband exercize. The laying cable exercize is not as bad.
As for the other exercises, I have not even considered them.
Then what exercise would you approve of for strengthening the hip flexors?
Running A’s at the end of your workout 
But again, like goose says, you still need proper Hip alignment in the drill
Running A’s are probably the most practical way of conditioning the hip flexors. But they are more for strength endurance.
As a general rule, there really isn’t much need to specifically focus on the hip flexors regarding strength. They should develop in balance with the rest of the muscles from participation in most strength and explosive exercises. Most of the time, if there is a problem with the hip flexors, it’s excessive tightness (which can of course reduce their power output). I would concentrate first on maintaining optimal length and muscle tone in the hip flexors.
This happens very often with a large portion of the population.
Im starting to wonder, if the excessive tightness is caused due to a lack of strength compared to other muscles. If it cannot combat the problem with natural strength, it spasms and tightens in an attempt to combat other stronger forces.
That said, Flexibility and tone are looked at and corrected often and still tightness happens.
Which leads to a Q. - What kind of strength is missing, absolute or endurance?
An example could be the Rotor cuff of the shoulders. One is best working on the range of motion in a Strength Endurance phase than a Absolute strength phase. Same could be said for the hips flexors?
Most people sit all day, the hip flexors tighten adaptively. And stretching for 30-60 seconds or whatever does little to overcome 8 hours of sitting on one’s ass.
Lyle
Along these lines, something I should have pointed out is the role of the abdominal muscles in leg lift during the sprint stride. Charlie has mentioned this in a couple places (The Jane Project in particular comes to mind). The forward projection of the hips caused by the abdominal muscles in counter rotation to the shoulders contributes significantly to the lift of the swing leg (along with foot reaction off the ground). This forward hip projection reduces the need for the hip flexors to contribute to the leg lift. If the abdominals are weak or lack endurance the hip flexors can become overworked during sprinting, leading to fatigue and spasm.
Agreed - i get my guys (and girls) to learn to Turn their abs on during tempo 1st to learn how to do this. When they activate their lower abs, you can see their hips rotate, their feet land better, their posture improves etc and they FEEL like they are running easier. Its like a light you turn on and off by turning the abs on and off.
Once one has mastered it at tempo speed, it becomes easier to attempt it at high speed. (is it worth doing high speed if you cannot even keep your hips aligned at tempo speed?)
Also good practice to turn abs on and focus on hip alignment during Running A’s. A lot of people just ‘do it’ and as you say, tire out their hip flexors and try to keep going under Poor form.
Lying Leg Raises, focusing on the lower back being forced onto the ground at all times, not allowing it to arch up at all is a great exercise.
Flash hit the nail on the head with this one. Worrying about the strength of the hip flexors is going to be counterproductive for most. Although, I’d be more concerned with the excessive tightness of the hip flexors reducing the power output of a whole host of other muscles (rectus abdominus, external obliques, hamstrings, glutes).
And like Lyle said, doing a couple extra drills or stretches at practice is unlikely to correct the issues. The math won’t add up.
I don’t know about that. Dynamic Swings, PNF and static stretches (only at training, they rarely do their given homework) have worked wonders for my clients.
Just doing Static does very little for Bad tightness, but works for short term tightness, esp right after a workout. Oh, everybody in my group always does Dynamic movement Before sessions. These two, static and dynamic work good for 80% of the people. The others Need PNF - and a lot of the times its just to teach the hip flexors to actually Work from yrs of inactivity or stubborn tightness.
You get Faster results when coupled with massage etc, But considering the area involved, not many like being massaged there!! Foam Rolling is KING in that spot, so too the groin.
The maths does add up if you do at least 2 of the 3 stretches, and at times, all 3. The trick is actually doing them. And foam rolling, And checking out all the other muscles that affect the hips area. Most are too lazy and don’t do it.
Law of repetitive motion: I = NF/AR
I= Injury
N= Number of repetitions
F= Frequency of repetitions
A= Amplitude
R= Rest interval
Let’s say training takes place 5 times per week for one hour each day. You’re telling me the number/frequency of repetitions through 15 hours (assuming 8 hours of sleep) of daily life is being offset by the number/frequency of repetitions - and we’ll even say we’re really doing all encompassing corrective work and include amplitude - of one hour 5 times per week? 105 hours (15 hours * 7 days per week) of work is being equaled by 5 hours (1 hour * 5 days per week) of work?
Hell, let’s say people are only in an disadvantageous position 5 hours per day (HIGHLY unlikely). 35 hours is still > 5 hours. Oh, and that’s assuming all 5 hours of training are working on the problems the other 35 hours are causing. Another way to look at it: the duration of sitting hours upon hours each day does not and will not equal the duration of 10, or 100, 3 second repetition dynamic stretching exercises.
Inactive hip flexors? Show me someone with an inactive rectus femoris. Foam rolling is useless for activating musculature as well. It’s fruitful in relaxing musculature. Many people report muscles finally relaxing after some ART work. Ever see someone with intense ART done to them? All the bruising that occurs is a result of damage to the muscle. If you want to relax a muscle one manner to do it is to damage the hell out of it.
Just because your clients are getting better at performing various static and dynamic stretches in the gym does not mean you are correcting their inefficiencies. It only means you are getting them better at swinging their leg or whatever the mobility tool may be.
Vast majority of mobility/stretching work treats symptoms (the tight hip flexors for example) but do not treat causes (the disadvantageous positions the person’s body is in all day).
A woman gets breast cancer; she has a tumor and feels lethargic all day. What treatment do you prefer: give her some caffeine so she feels more upbeat during the day (symptom) or attack the tumor (cause)?
haha
You think im going to sit here all day and write about what it takes in a Forum about getting Bad Hips to work again… your joking right?
A few lines doesnt tell the whole story. An article doesnt fully tell either (i can email you an article if you like?) But im not going to email through books… lol
I have seen too many people Pissing into the wind just doing Therapy work, therapy exercises therapy this therapy that. IN most cases, its not nearly as hard as your making out IF you know what your doing.
I have had countless people with bad backs come to me after yrs of seeing specialists with little to no results and fix issues in only Wks by treating the Whole problem (not just weak hip flexors). hell, a lady last night came to me, had spent the last 2+ months seeing a specialist for her bad hips, and the 1st thing i find out is she Cannot activate her hip flexors, at all. In all honesty, im 99% sure that by next wk, she will be able to activate them IF she does her 2min of homework Everynight.
According to the dribble you crap on with above, we are going to remove all seats (i bet your not standing as you read this) come on… are you serious? Your not going to stop ppl sitting unless its their job.
According to your logic, You might as well also say, unless your lifting weights 8hrs a day, your not going to make progress as out of 24hrs a day, your muscles dont need to work, so you need to work them long enough to get them to realize your serious.
I have had guys grow in size on 30min workouts 3 x wk before! If you do the MATHS, he is working out only 90min out of 10, 080 total weekly minutes! Thats just under 1% of total weekly time!
As for Foam rolling not activating muscles - c’com! really? If a muscle the size of a small banana is nearly fully spasmed, How is it going to Work at all? It might a little bit, but not much. Now, if you relax that muscle, so its no longer in spasm… c’mon, you can see where its going??
You cannot stop people from earning a living who sit down all day in front of computers or study or such. So you have to learn to stop thinking you can, and what you can do to still be able to Fix the persons problems. IT can be done.
PLEASE show me an example of someone who cannot activate their hip flexors. That is, show me a person who cannot raise their hip from 180 degrees AT ALL. I’ll save you the trouble, you won’t find it. Oh yes, I’m sure this client of yours cannot move flex her hip at all. Because if she can’t activate her hip flexors how in the hell is she walking every day? Like a freakin’ penguin wobbling back and forth with her legs COMPLETELY straight???
Yes, according to my logic you must lift weights 8 hours per day. Because in my post I made a bunch of references regarding how much time must be put in to induce a hypertrophy/strength effect. No, I made a post regarding INJURIES. The law of repetitive motion, let me say that again, THE LAW OF REPETITIVE MOTION is not the LAW OF HYPERTROPHY OR STRENGTH. But for what it’s worth, hypertrophy is not going to happen with 1% of one’s meals resulting in a caloric surplus (unless you are ingesting an ungodly amount of calories 1% of the time per week). Just because 1% of one’s time is spent training DOES NOT mean 1% of the time a stimulus is being given.
I’ve seen people grow on zero training in the weight room per week, it’s called eating more calories than you expend.
Uhh, if a muscle is spasming it’s not active? You might want to rethink this. If a muscle is spasming it is contracting, that is, it is ALREADY WORKING. How in the hell is a muscle contracting if it is not active? How in the hell is a muscle contracting not already working? You’re going to activate a muscle more by relaxing it? The point of foam rolling a spasming muscle is to RELAX it. A spasming muscle is just about as active as a muscle is ever going to get. Your logic of using foam rolling/massage to activate a muscle is asinine. Why do people always ask for massages on places of their body where there are knots? Because they want that musculature to be RELAXED. Activating a muscle is making that muscle contract. You want to make a muscle hold contracture? Tighten the shit out of it.
You need to come to the conclusion that people who are sitting earning a living at a computer 8 hours a day might get some results, but they are unlikely to be optimal or the best results that person can get. I never said these people were a hopeless cause to induce any benefit to. What I said was 1 hour of correction will not offset hours upon hours of screwing up. My “dribble” consists of reality: Offsetting the amount of screwing up with a relatively equal amount of correcting. I never said get rid of chairs. I said however often you are in a chair one should work on not being in a chair as well. Meanwhile, your dribble consists of correcting YEARS of inefficiencies with a few drills a couple times per week. Apparently logic defies your brain capacity.
When im talking Hip flexors, im talking the main muscles, not the secondary.
ie
Psoas major
Psoas minor
Iliacus muscle
There are other muscles that are involved in hip flexion for walking purposes IF these muscles are not working correctly.
It is possible to Isolate them to test if they are working.
Also - just because a muscle can turn ON, does not mean it can Work. A working muscle works by also turning off. Like brakes in a car, If they only turn ON, they are useless. Find the problem that is keeping them ON and fix it, then you fix your brakes. Find what is keeping a spasmed muscle ON and fix it, and you fix the muscle. You cannot activate a 100% spasmed muscle (if its 100% spasmed, which rarely happens) You can however, activate a muscle that is not fully spasmed - however you can tell (or should be able to tell) that it is weaker compared to how it normally is or compared to the other muscle on the other side.
The more specialists out there that act like you Desider, the busy i get actually Fixing them and then getting them to their goals! They dont care that their hip flexors dont work, they care to loose fat, look good, run well and be pain free. Too often i see Specialists spending month after month, yr after yr achieving nothing because they are trying to fix the Pain, and go around and around in circles. Too much pain = little training, and little training get them demotivated and they stay Fat, not looking good and running/swimming/paddling poorly.
Comparison of anteroposterior thickness of elite sprinters and distance runners’ abdominal muscles…
You guys do realise the hip flexors connect the legs to the “powerhouse”.
Very strange as to why so many people have dismissed the muscle group. I notice Charlie hasn’t replied. Does he know something he doesn’t want you to know?.
Results: The anteroposterior (AP) thicknesses of all abdominal muscles, had statistically significant differences between the two groups of runners, as the rectus abdominis muscle (RA) (P < 0.001). Internal and external Oblique muscles (IO and EO) were thicker in the sprinters group; and in contrast, the transversus abdominis muscle (TA) owned more thickness among the distance runners (P < 0.05).
Since I would imagine that the sprinters were probably 10-30 pounds heavier than the distance runners, and certainly more muscular overall, it doesn’t surprise me that sprinters would have thicker muscles, even in the abs. But the distance runners having thicker transverse abdominis muscles is interesting.
Volume, lung compression & rotation.
The transverse abdominis "The greatest muscle in the body bar none".
I would vote for the heart 