Hip hinge

Type

Strength

Equipment

No equipment

Area

Lower back

Level

Beginner

Starting dose in Remedy

3 sets of 12

How to do it

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your knees softly bent.
2. Put your hands on the front of your hips.
3. Push your hips straight back, letting your chest come forward while your back stays long.
4. Go until you feel your hamstrings stretch, then stand up by driving your hips forward.

Form cues

• Push the hips back, not the knees forward.
• Keep a long back and soft knees.

Common mistakes

• Bending from the waist and rounding the back.
• Turning it into a squat by bending the knees too much.

Easier and harder versions

• To make it easier: Hold a broomstick along your back, touching your head, upper back, and tailbone. If any point loses contact, you are rounding.
• Harder: Banded Romanian deadlift or Single-leg Romanian deadlift

Why it helps a sore back

Learning to bend from the hips is one of the most useful things a person with a sore back can practice, because it is how you pick things up every day. Remedy uses it to build the pattern before adding load.

How Remedy uses it

In the app it is called Bodyweight Hip Hinge. Remedy is more likely to pick it if you say your back is bothered by bending or lifting. A typical starting dose is 3 sets of 12, and the program adjusts reps as the weeks go on. Every exercise in the app has a demonstration video.

General fitness information, not medical advice. Stop any exercise that causes sharp pain, or pain, numbness, or tingling spreading down a leg.