A Physical Therapist Says This Move Gives You ‘A Lot of Bang for Your Buck’ in Stabilizing Your Hips

In the three most recent episodes of Trainer of the Month Club, Pilates and barre instructor Laurence Agenor, DPT, has led you through workouts that have specifically focused on strengthening your core, your endurance, and your glutes in order to improve your running abilities. In her fourth and final workout for the series, we're going to hit them all. "This workout is specifically designed to target all of those areas that you need for optimal performance," she says. The workout includes a particularly powerful sideline series that Dr. Agenor says gives you "a lot of bang for your buck" in working your hip stabilizers, which are oh-so-important to your running performance.

Hip stability is important for running because it helps to improve your coordination and to train your muscles to work together with proper form and function. "For an activity like running, you really want your hip stabilizers to be strong in order to avoid any sort of injuries to the knee or any sort of unnecessary, painful sprains," Dr. Agenor said in a previous episode of TOTMC.

For a hip-stabilizing movement Dr. Agenor says will give you "a lot of bang for your buck," start by laying on your side with your knees bent. You can either cradle your head with your hand or reach your bottom arm out long. Both hip bones should be stacked on top of the other, and your heels should be in line with your hips, your hips in line with your shoulders, your shoulders in line with the crown of your head. Bring your knees toward your chest so that your shins are parallel with your yoga mat. Turn your top knee down, raising your shin and foot slightly. From there, lift and lower your entire leg. "So we're specifically targeting the glute here with this hip flexion abduction and internal rotation of the hip, like a triple whammy," Dr. Agenor says. You'll do this move on both sides.

Press play on the video above to get the full-body workout, including the rest of Agenor's hip stability exercises.

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