What is the “Muted hip” and why is it so important to avoid for CrossFit, bodybuilding, and functional movements? Before we talk about what a muted hip is, we first must address the roles of your hip muscles.
Let’s talk glutes!
Your glutes include your gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus, each responsible for their own motions at the hip. Primarily, these movements are lifting the leg back (extension), out to the side (abduction), and controlling excessive motion at your hips and low back when you are in a standing position (abduction and extension). The main movement we are going to talk about today is hip extension, which can look like different things.
Hip extension can be seen below
The first, in a clean movement, extending the hips to move the weight of the bar from below the hips, to the chest. The second is moving from hip flexion to extension in a bridge position. Both require activation of the glutes and hip extension mobility to successfully perform these movements without pain or injury. A muted hip occurs when a person fails to flex at their hips and compensates with bending into their knees, as seen in the lower image.
A muted hip can occur when you catch the barbell in the clean or snatch with little to no glute or hamstring activation and are more quad dominant. This creates more force on your low back and your knees, leading to pain or injury in these areas.
A muted hip position often occurs during the pressing movement of a push press or a push jerk/ split jerk. When you have the barbell at your chest, if you dip down by bending your knees forward without flexing at your hips (as seen in the bottom image) you will lose the activation of your glute muscles. This not only causes you to lose power, but also puts increased pressure on your low back and knees and can set you up for injury.
So what can you do to fix this?
When preparing for movements that require powerful hip extension such as barbell cleans, snatches, and push jerk/press—warm up the hips first! These exercises will activate the glutes so that when you load up the barbell, you draw awareness to these muscles and are ready to use them. Try these exercises:
Glute Exercises:
Wall Drill (Good to use if the bar is too heavy)
Jumping Exercise:
Besides warming up the glutes, the other thing you can do is deload your barbell and practice the catch and push position without weight added to the bar. Focus on setting your hips back (like the first stick figure) instead of ‘bending into your knees’ like the second stick figure. If you’re working out of a muted hip, don’t load the barbell up with weight until you can hit these positions correctly to prevent injury.
Need more help?
Reach out to one of our Physical Therapist’s at Athlete’s Mechanic to help!