My mission as a coach, and a business owner in the Health, Fitness and Sports Performance industries is to inspire others to better themselves through the passing of knowledge.
So, today, we are going to talk about the Thomas Test and how this contributes to both diagnosing hip mobility issues and also how you can use the test itself to apply mobility training to a client.
The video below goes through the way to apply this to your training. So, lets talk hip mobility.
When we squat, there are three main joints that are dependent on each other to create good movement patterns. The ankle, knee and hip. So, the ankle needs to be mobile, so a level of dorsiflexion is required to let the heels stay flat, whilst the knees find the path they need to take according to each person’s leverage. If the ankle does not provide enough dorsiflexion, it makes the person have to compensate, usually by pushing their hips further back and loading up their back more than their legs (this is a very basic view!).
If you have really tight muscles that surround the hip, especially the Quadriceps/hip flexors, it can adjust the control that you have over stability at your lumbar spine. This is very important, because the more you add movement through your lumbar spine, the more stress you place on very small joints in the body. This stress becomes cumulative in nature, and many lifters do not see the negative results for years, when they bend over one day to pick up a pen and their back “goes on them.” The reality is that the degenerative effects of heavy lifting, with too much compensation at the lumbar spine level has finally gotten to them!
So, the Thomas test can identify if someone is really tight through their hip flexor and quadriceps muscles. IN another video and article we will go over some ways that we use to mobilise this area of the body to get immediate results and an immediate change in the mobility of the hip joint.
So, if you want to try to identify whether you are tight in your quads or hip flexors and you think this is a problem, do the test on yourself, video record each side so you can see as well as feel, and see what you come back with. Feel free to message us or contact us on Facebook with questions, and we will see if we can put together more information and resources on how to FIX the problem!
I can be contacted at glenn@vectorhealth.stagingarea.net or by phone on 4927 8190 or through our Facebook Site.