Do you have problems getting into the best position in your squats? Do you spend a lot of time warming up? This quick tip is quite possible the best thing you can do to open your hips, get into a better position to move better, feel better and perform better. Thats what its all about, right? Feeling awesome and performing your best IS the name of the game. I'm not saying you should have the ability to go eye to eye with your own back door, but improvement is a good thing.

You'll need two stretch bands, and two fixed objects like a squat rack, a playground set, or even two friends helping you out manually. Wrap the bands around the most proximal end of your femur (thigh bone), near the hip, being careful not to pinch your goods, you'll wrap the other end of the band around the fixed objects located a few feet out to the sides from your hips. Doing this will distract your thighs from your hips laterally and provide you with the type of hip mobility and freedom of motion that would make William Wallace proud. This is actually the mobility drill that Braveheart did prior to delivering his motivational speech to his fellow countrymen before they took to the fields to protect their land, their family and their FREEDOM!

Give it a quick watch and let me know how much more awesome you feel. Greg Everett refers to this basic drill as Russian Baby Makers in this article, but he simply pushes out his legs manually. I feel the inclusion of bands provides added assistance and slightly different benefit because you can put yourself in a few different positions while not pushing your femurs out manually, so let me know what you think after you try it. I have seen similar drills with one band at a time, but not yet seen both legs distracted simultaneously. There is tons of tremendous information available from guys like Greg at Catalyst Athletics, Kit Laughlin at Posture and Flexibility, Kelley Starrett at MWOD and Smitty from Diesel Crew have great innovative ideas for enhanced performance. Maybe lots of people do this already, but I haven't seen it yet, probably because I don't spend hours searching the interwebz daily. Also, I am not claiming to invent anything, I just want to feel better and help you do the same. Some of my verbiage is probably wrong here, but I don't care because the fact remains, I feel more awesome after doing this.