For Sprinters what are some good Hip Flexors Exercises?

Last Updated on April 18, 2023 by Andrew Pirie

How do develop Hip Flexors exercises for Sprints?

Your hip flexors consist of your iliacus and psoas major muscles.  This muscle group is often referred to as the iliopsoas, and its main function is to flex your hip. You perform this motion when you move your thigh toward your stomach. Strengthening these muscles helps improve your sprinting power and technique.  Weight training exercises that involve hip flexion can help you reach that goal.

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1. Use a stability ball to do knee tucks.
2. Place your hands shoulder-width apart on the floor and place your lower shins on top of the ball.
3. Your body should be in a push-up position at this point.
4. Keep your back straight and abs tight as you bend your knees and roll the ball toward your head.
5. Tuck your knees into your chest, roll the ball back out, and repeat.

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1. Fasten an ankle strap to your lower right leg and set a cable machine on low to do leg raises.
2. Lie flat on your back with your legs facing the weight stack and arms at your sides or hands on your hips.
3. Keep your leg straight and raise it as high as possible. 
4. Try to get your foot parallel to the ceiling.
5. Lower your leg until it is right above the floor, repeat, then switch sides.

SPRINT PERFORMANCE Hip Flexors Exercises

• The network done at the hips increases when the speed increases.
• The net energy absorbed by the quadriceps and hamstring increases when the speed increases.
• Quads at the initial swing and hamstrings at the terminal swing (a specific type of contraction here).
• This gives you an important idea for a practical application in the weight room.
• To bridge the gap (science-practical) a little bit, see below.
• Increase the hip flexors and extensors’ ability to produce force and increase the hams and quads (knee flex/extend) to absorb the number of forces produced from the hips.
• These are the keys to sprint performance, in contrast to the popular belief that quadriceps strength is the only primary focus of sprint training.
• These notes are also important from an injury perspective.

Training your Hip Flexors Exercises

By Kevin O’Neill MS, CSCS

The purpose of this article is to emphasize the lack of hip flexor strength training among today’s athletes and coaches. Through my experience working with athletes in a variety of sports.

• I believe that athletes and coaches do not train the hip flexors for strength gains nearly enough as they should.
• I feel as though many coaches make a consistent effort to increase their athlete’s hip flexibility but sometimes fail to strengthen this muscle group adequately.

So why am I professing hip flexor strength?

• The stronger the hip flexors (along with the hamstrings and glutes), the faster the athlete will be.
• Strong hip flexors allow for a faster and more powerful forward leg movement and upward knee drive.
• I am not trying to diminish the importance of lateral movement in sports, but forward leg movement is huge in athletics.
• If you’re not moving forward, you’re not gaining ground.
• Strong hip flexors allow for a faster and more powerful forward leg movement and upward knee drive.
• I am not trying to diminish the importance of lateral movement in sports, but forward leg movement is huge in athletics.
• If you’re not moving forward, you’re not gaining ground.

Hip Flexors Exercises strength not only aids in performance but also in injury prevention

Hip flexor strength not only aids in performance but also injury prevention.

Another important role of the hip flexors is functioning as brakes to the hamstrings when they exert a high force.

“Moreover, it is important to note that reciprocal inhibition of the antagonist usually occurs whenever an agonist is strongly activated  In other words, the antagonist invariably relaxes when the agonist contracts. Except when the action is extremely rapid and some antagonists come into play to prevent joint damage due to the large momentum of the moving limb” (Siff).

To make this point a little more applicable to everyday life: “It is the same safety precaution you would take if driving a car.

Imagine if you had a car that could go 150 mph but brakes that could only stop you at 100 mph or slower.

Would you drive 150 mph?” (Cunningham).

I am not trying to preach the importance of muscle balance here. More focused on the hip extensor-hip flexor agonist-antagonist relationship and making that relationship as strong as possible.

And tired of articles stating that one muscle must equal the X % output of another muscle.

I could reference numerous EFS Q&A responses stating, “Bring up your weaknesses.”

That makes sense to me. No percentages. Just make everything stronger—the bottom line.

Stepping away from the technical aspect

Stepping away from the technical aspect, the importance of hip flexor strength is observed when watching athletes perform.

I wish I could work with and test the hip flexors of former Houston Oilers running back Earl Campbell.

Every time I have seen a video clip of him, it seems like he was running over some poor soul.

He would put his head down and bring his knee right through the defender’s body.

The same can be said about running back Roger Craig.

He wasn’t the biggest back, but every time I saw him running in traffic, his knees were up around his chest somewhere, making him very tough to bring down.

Strong Hip Flexors Exercises are not solely beneficial to football

Strong hip flexors are not solely beneficial to football.

Hockey and lacrosse players need quite often to skate and run through contact.

The baseball player getting his first step out of the box or off a base will benefit from strong hip flexors. As will the basketball player exploding for his first step out of his triple-threat position.

MMA fighters benefit from hip flexor strength when throwing knees and kicks. Sprinters need robust hip flexors and, without them, might as well be joggers or speed walkers (tremendous oxymoron).

Stronger hip flexors have also been proven to enhance performance in sprints and shuttle runs.

Take this excerpt from an article on the topic:

“Individuals in the training group improved hip flexion strength by 12.2% and decreased their 40-yd and shuttle run times by 3.8% and 9.0%, respectively. An increase in hip flexion strength can help to improve sprint and agility performance for physically active, untrained individuals.” (Deane et al.)

While we did this study on untrained people, the results show the benefits of hip flexor strength training.

I know athletes are not untrained, but I do believe they are undertrained in this area.

So, how do we strengthen the all-important hip flexors? 

Below is a list of just a few exercises for strengthening the hip flexors:

Spread Eagle Sit-ups

These are mentioned quite often on the EFS site.

1. Start by lying on your back.
2. Spread your legs while keeping them straight and hook your feet on the vertical support beams of a power rack.
3. Then perform a straight-leg sit-up.
4. For more resistance, hold a weight or dumbbell. If you don’t have a power rack, use a Smith Machine, which I also use to stretch my lats and hang my bands on end,

so I don’t need to bend over and pick them off the floor and risk pulling tight hamstrings.

These are three instances where using the Smitty is acceptable, along with any other activity where the bar doesn’t move.

Hanging Knee / Leg Raises

1. while hanging from a pull-up bar or some other apparatus, keep the upper body straight.
2. You can either bend your legs and bring your knees to your chest or keep your legs straight and bring the toes to the ceiling with the legs parallel to the floor.
3. For added resistance, you can hold a dumbbell or kettlebell with your feet.

Incline / Flat Bench Leg Raises:

1. The same exercise as above, but you adjust the angle to make it a little easier.
2. Lie supine on the bench and hold onto the bench behind your head.
3. Then perform the leg raises with either a straight or bent leg.

Cable / Band Knee Drive:

This is my personal favorite. 

1. Use the ankle cuff cable attachment and attach it to the low cable pulley.
2. Put a bench or box out in front of you and place both hands on it. You want your body to look like that of a sprinter while taking off out of the blocks.
3. Make sure you are far enough away from the cable so when your leg is straight, there is still tension on it, and the weight stacks do not touch.
4. While keeping a flat back, ballistically drive the knee forward and up in front of your chest. Stay in control of the weight on the negative, so it doesn’t jerk your leg at the end.

This is most certainly not a TUT exercise, but you need to be smart about it. Also, focus on keeping the ankle cocked in dorsiflexion.

You can also do this with a band instead of a cable. Just find something solid to hook the band on.

I like using the bands because they force you to accelerate as the movement progresses.

• Lying Cable Knee Drive: same principle as above exercise. While lying on your back, attach your ankle cuffs to the low cable pulley and bring both knees to the chest.

Forward Sled Dragging:

Another one is popular on the EFS site. Using the sled strap attachment, place a loop around each foot. Proceed to walk straight ahead.

To summarize a few things, I am not saying that hip flexor strength alone will make an athlete fast.

Hip extension and posterior chain work are also essential. I just don’t feel that it is as severely neglected as its counterpart.

Another point not to be forgotten but beyond the scope of this article is the need to stretch the hip flexors.

Tight hip flexors can be a huge issue with so many athletes, thus hindering performance.

All this strengthening I am preaching will have you walking around looking like you didn’t fully evolve unless you stretch those puppies.

Do the Hip Flexors Deserve to be Ignored?

Listen to most modern-day musings about the hip flexors, and you’d think they were red-headed stepchildren – Nothing but irritating muscles that need to be stretched and contribute nothing of importance.

After all, tight hip flexors contribute to back pain and gluteal amnesia and they get in the way of your ab work when you’re trying to strengthen your abs or develop a sexy midsection; why would you want to focus on strengthening them?

**For any anatomy newbies out there the hip flexors are the muscles responsible for lifting your knees and feet up off the ground when you run or walk. The higher you lift your knees, the greater the degree of hip flexor activation you get.

 

I’d always believed the hip flexors, collectively known as the iliopsoas muscles, weren’t much worth worrying about and prescribed only a modicum of remedial work for them for most athletes.

It wasn’t until I had a personal experience with an injured hip several years ago that my opinions began to change. Before I get into that, let’s look at some rather surprising science:

The Science Might Surprise You

One fairly recent study showed that a 12.2% increase in hip flexor strength improved 40 yd dash and shuttle run times by 3.8% and 9.0%, respectively.

1. Another paper demonstrated a link between larger relative psoas strength (the primary hip flexor) and 100-meter speed.
2. Another paper found that hip flexor strength more accurately correlated with 20 & 50-meter sprints than squat strength – the association was powerful for 20-meter sprints.
3. Interestingly enough, another paper demonstrated that the psoas muscle’s size in male African Americans was relatively more than 3 times greater than in whites.
4. Based on this, it seems fast people naturally have bigger and stronger psoas muscles, AND strengthening the hip flexors might be beneficial for speed-seeking athletes.

However, there is a bit of discord on exactly what role the hip flexors play in the sprints. The common belief is the stronger your hip flexors, the more powerful and faster you can lift your knees.

And this might contribute to making you faster. However, in my opinion, this view is not entirely accurate. Let me explain:

The Weyand Study

According to the now-infamous Weyand sprint research, what occurs to the legs after the foot leaves the ground does not affect running speed. This study found that elite sprinters ran faster entirely owing to their stride power.

They recovered slower than slower sprinters. The recovery phase is when you elevate your knees or take a step.

The faster you press against the ground, the faster you elevate your knees, and the faster you rotate your feet through the air.

Strong hip flexors—what’s up? I think hip flexors are the best “setup” muscles. Let me describe my hip injury:

The Set-Up

Good femur control helps prime the glutes for the downstroke by efficiently lifting your knee on the upstroke.

If the hip flexors are weak, the pelvis’ posture doesn’t prime the glutes when the foot comes off the ground when walking or sprinting.

It’s common in swaybacked. Strengthening hip flexors improves hip posture, glute engagement, and back/hip pain.

Having an optimal posture in the sprints

Sprinting with good posture (repositioning your legs correctly during the recovery phase and having the strength to do so) allows you to apply more force when your foot hits the ground and you push off.

Contributing musculature improves pre-activation, leverage, and pre-stretch.

Bench press strength increases with upper and mid-back strength.

So, a powerful knee drive doesn’t make you quick; it merely gives you more leverage when you push off.

Is your hip flexor weak? Assess first.

Hip Flexor Exercises and Assessments

Copy the sprinter’s posture. The hip flexors are one of the few muscles that are weak in the shorter range (the top of a full knee or leg lift) rather than the stretch range, in my experience.

Focus on knee-raising exercises to lift your thigh above 90 degrees.

This strength test is a fantastic workout. Don’t slouch.

Hip flexor drills seated.

Many can’t lift their knee an inch without squirming.

You should be able to come up with several inches

Exercise becomes tougher as you lean forward. If you bend forward 45 degrees and can’t lift your foot, you need work.

2-3 times a week, do two sets of 8-10 with a 2-3 second hold at the top. Bands add resistance.

Fortunately, hip flexors adapt swiftly and keep strength easily.

Doing the same thing standing up also works the plant leg glute:

Standing hip flexor exercises Drill (stand straight, plant leg, knee)

Hanging knee and leg raises also target the psoas. Pike varieties are best:

Hanging Pike Progressions

Watch Your Running Form 

Watch yourself when running front and back. People with weak hip flexors shorten their strides and cross their knees in front.

The feet flail outward from the back. During high-knee skips, your knees should reflexively “pop” up.

If you have to lean back or force your knees up, you need strength training.

Stretching?

Now, what about stretching the hip flexors exercises?

Well, the psoas is a muscle that is often tight AND weak, so it’s still important to do hip flexor stretches; just don’t necessarily neglect all strength training for them, especially for beginners.

Conclusion Hip Flexors Exercises

Anyway, don’t take this article to imply that you should begin spending 90% of your time on training the hip flexors –

they need not be the main focus, and their contribution still pales in comparison to your prime lower body movers (quads, glutes, hamstrings) but, if in doubt, spend 15 minutes a week on some regular hip flexor work for a month or so and see what you notice!

References Hip Flexors Exercises:

August 2005 – Volume 19 – Issue 3 : The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. (n.d.). August 2005 – Volume 19 – Issue 3 : The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research p. 615-621. Retrieved September 7, 2022, from https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/toc/2005/08000

Cunningham, C. “Training Speed – Are You Training the Right Muscles.”

Deane, R. S., Chow, J. W., Tillman, M. D., & Fournier, K. A. (2005). Effects of hip flexor training on sprint, shuttle run, and vertical jump performance. Journal of Strength and conditioning research, 19(3), 615–621. https://doi.org/10.1519/14974.1

Hanson, P., Magnusson, S. P., Sorensen, H., & Simonsen, E. B. (1999). Anatomical differences in the psoas muscles in young black and white men. Journal of Anatomy, 194 ( Pt 2)(Pt 2), 303–307. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1469-7580.1999.19420303.x

Hoshikawa, Y., Muramatsu, M., Iida, T., Uchiyama, A., Nakajima, Y., Kanehisa, H., & Fukunaga, T. (2006). Influence of the psoas major and thigh muscularity on 100-m times in junior sprinters. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 38(12), 2138–2143. https://doi.org/10.1249/01.mss.0000233804.48691.45

Predicting Sprint Running Times From Isokinetic and Squat… : The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. (n.d.). Pages 101-103 LWW. Retrieved September 7, 2022, from https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/abstract/1998/05000/predicting_sprint_running_times_from_isokinetic.8.aspx

Siff, M. (2000). Supertraining. 5th edition. Denver, CO.

Training & Conditioning, May / June 2001.

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