Hip Mobility 101 with Joanna Castro

Raise your hand if you have tight hips…is yours up? Both of mine are!

Whether you exercise everyday or not, you may experience an uncomfortable tightness in your hips that makes it harder for you to move. This is because as we age, our joints can become stiffer and less flexible, and overtime we can lose more and more of our mobility. 

For those unfamiliar with these terms, mobility refers to your body’s range of motion (which is connected to flexibility) and its ability to perform certain movements. Mobility work or mobility training focuses on exercises that improve the range of movements and motions your body can perform. As I always tell my clients, “motion is the lotion”—meaning the more we move, the easier it is to move, and to keep our mobility, we need to work on it daily. 

To help us learn more about mobility—and to give our hips a good stretching out—I’ve enlisted the help of Joanna Castro, a fitness coach and mobility expert. Here’s a little background on Joanna…

Joanna Castro is a fitness coach at Body Space Fitness, a boutique personal training gym in NYC that focuses on full-body, functional workouts. She is a NASM-certified trainer and a pre/postnatal specialist, with nearly two decades of experience in the health and wellness industry. Joanna helps her clients improve their strength and mobility, as well as their confidence and overall well-being!

Below, Joanna talks about the importance of mobility, and gives us three easy movements you can do to improve your hip mobility, no matter what your fitness level is! She demos each in a video—so make sure to check them out and give these moves a try!

Joanna, why is mobility important? Why should we care about it?   

Mobility work is needed to maintain healthy joints and emotional stability. With our lives becoming more sedentary, especially since the pandemic, our bodies have become less mobile which affects our daily movements when we are active. Not moving in full range directly affects the way we breathe. Something I often say to my clients is: “When we do not breathe, we do not move.” We are literally stunted in our movements. The great thing about mobility work is that you cannot do the work without the deep inhalation and exhalation.

Also, we hold a lot of stress and emotional trauma in our hips. Our hips are unique in that they’re designed to bear weight, assist in stabilizing the core, and move the upper portion of our legs (thighs). With everything that our hips are responsible for, it is vital to keep them as fluid as we can. 

What movements can we do everyday to help improve our hip mobility? 

Below are three of my favorite movements for hip mobility. I recommend devoting five to 10 minutes a day to deep breathing, core, and hip mobility work. If you do this, you will begin to feel better throughout your days and before you know it, it’ll become a habit. As you move through these motions, remember that shallow breathing equals shallow movements. 

Here are a few movements you can try to improve your hip mobility!

1. Prone 90 degrees heel raises (works the internal rotation at our end ranges)

In this first video I’m doing prone bent knee heel raises, tackling some internal rotation at my hip. I’m keeping my hip bones squared off with the ground. One knee bent at a 90 degree angle. Inhale deeply then exhale as you bring your heel up towards the ceiling while maintaining your hips grounded. Hold for a count of 5 seconds. Repeat six to eight times, then switch sides. 

2. Side lying hip cars (works hips in flexion and extension)

The second video shows side lying hip CARs. You’re bringing your hips into flexion and extension at their end ranges without arching your low back. The key here is to work on your end ranges while breathing to create greater range over time. 

3. Banded dead bugs (loosens hip and works core) 

The last video is a banded dead bug variation. Place a mini band around the balls of your feet, and bend your knees, keeping no space between your back and ground. Here I’m holding my arms directly over my shoulders, knees over hips, feet flexed. Exhale as you extend one leg out only to where your back is maintained planted into the ground. Hold for a 5 second count, repeat 8 reps per leg.

I recommend adding these moves to your workout warmup! Do one set of 6 to 8 reps, or work these in a circuit by doing 6 to 8 reps per side, and repeating 2 to 3 times. 

I cannot stress enough how important mobility work is. If we do not incorporate it into our routine, we will not move as efficiently as we could. I’m all about quality reps and being able to go about your day comfortably. I hope you’ll give these moves a try and see the difference for yourself! 

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A HUGE shoutout to Joanna for being our featured expert in this blog post, and for helping us all learn to move better one step at a time. You can find Joanna, and more of her mobility and fitness expertise, over on Instagram @joliftlaugh! Plus, I’m sure she’ll be back on the PJW blog soon—she is the real deal and a total sweetheart to boot! 

Xo, 

Renata