How-To Videos High Knees

HIGH KNEES

Follow along with Andrew Dettelbach for some quick tips on how to properly perform MonkeyFeet high knees. Please use a weight that is most comfortable for you.

High knees or hip flexor marches are an excellent way to strengthen the hip flexors and the tibialis anterior in the front of the shin. Now you might be thinking, why would I want to strengthen my hip flexors they're already tight. Thing is tightness doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be stretched all the time, if you find you're always having to massage and stretch a muscle in the body it's time to strengthen it. Neurologically, yes, it's tight and also very weak so let's strengthen it. Now you're going to need Monkeyfoot, start with light weight and build as you get better at maintaining these positions. I like to stand on a little plate so I can get full extension of the hip here. This is also totally fine without a plate.

To start you want to make sure that you're lifting the knee straight up in front of you, you can play with different angles if you want to, but for the purpose of this video let's work on keeping it straight up and down. Now from the side view, we don't want to be crunching down, you want to keep your pelvis tucked, keep it nice and neutral, your ribs are in, you're reaching the crown of your head up to the ceiling the entire time. You're lifting at the hip joint, so notice there's nothing else moving here except the hip and the knee. I'm also working to pull the toe up toward the knee so I keep that tib anterior active and from the front view I don't want to crunch my side body down, so again this is staying level, this is staying neutral, and as I lift that leg upward nice and slow nothing else is moving, just the hip joint. You're going to feel this a lot in the hip flexor, make sure that you're coming down slowly, moving through the reps slowly, enjoy.

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