Charlie Weingroff and Mark Cheng: Working the Wrong Joints

Excerpted from Charlie Weingroff & Mark Cheng Hacking the Hip Hinge

Mark Cheng: Have you done any martial arts kicking?

How many of you have seen people doing aerobic-style kickboxing, which isn’t like hard-contact Muay Thai or MMA, and then see them later on complaining about back pain?

One of the things Dr. Weingroff said earlier that was so spot on was, if your lumbar spine is flexing more than your hips are flexing when you’re lifting your leg, guess what you’re working?

The wrong joints.

Every time you throw a kick at that bag, every time you throw a kick in the air, every time you try and move your leg whether it’s on a sprint, whether it’s on a kick, whatever it is, if your lumbar spine is doing the majority of the movement because your hip doesn’t have that access or mobility, you’re working the wrong joints.

In working the wrong joints, you aren’t developing fitness. You’re developing liability.

To check this, I’d like you to start off with the FMS Active Straight Leg Raise. What we’re going to do with this is just to get a baseline, and the baseline here is to check inventory.

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