The Hip Flexors can make you run FAST, but they are probably one of the most neglected muscles in the body.

Having strong Hip Flexors can increase your sprinting power significantly, but how do you go about training this muscle?

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Apart from tweaking your Squat and Lunge technique to activate more of your Hip Flexors through the movement, there are ways to directly train this powerful muscle.

What Do the Hip Flexors Do?

What is a Hip Flexor? - Plano Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Center
Hip Flexor Muscle
Hip Flexor Muscle

The Hip Flexors lift the knee up towards the body and often work in concert with the lower abdominal muscles.

Having strong Hip Flexors can increase stride frequency, stride length, knee lift speed, propel your body forward as you sprint, and make you an overall faster sprinter.

You may need to modify your sprinting technique a little to get the most out of having strong Hip Flexors.

There are two ways to train them: 1) by selective activation in the Squat/Lunge lockout portion and 2) Direct activation through isolated movement.

Unfortunately, the amount of exercises out there to hammer the Hip Flexors are fairly limited — hence why I’ve only offered two exercises for the purpose of this article.

Isometric Resistance Band Hip Flexor Hold

This exercise is very simple to do and can be done most days once you get used to it.

By tying a band around a solid, sturdy column/post/railing/etc, place your foot in the resistance band’s loop, raise your knee to 90 degrees to your body and your foot to 90 degrees to your knee.

Proceed to hold this position, feeling a pulling tension from the resistance band, for approximately 10-15 seconds before changing leg.

Now, this exercise isn’t glamorous, but it will bring up your Hip Flexor strength fast.

Weighted Hanging Leg Raise

For this exercise, you will have to tap into your inner bodybuilder and try to conjure some mind-muscle connection.

While Hanging Leg Raises are already a tough exercise, adding a weight makes it a lot more challenging, but it also shifts much of the muscular activation towards the Hip Flexors.

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Attempt this exercise for 3 sets of 6-8 reps once per week to start. Don’t go too heavy on these — a light dumbbell held by your feet will suffice.

Your abdominals will get a tough workout as well as your Hip Flexors — but this is a win-win as a stronger core will also translate to a faster overall sprint speed.

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