How To Do The 90/90 Hip Lift Correctly
Step By Step Guide To The Single Most Important Corrective Exercise In PRI
If you could only do one corrective exercise for the rest of your training career, it should be the 90/90 Hip Lift. It addresses more dysfunction in a single position than any other exercise in the PRI repertoire. It restores pelvic position, reestablishes the Zone of Apposition, activates the hamstrings, and teaches exhalation as stability.
Why The 90/90 Hip Lift Is The Most Important Corrective
The 90/90 Hip Lift, a foundational exercise in the Postural Restoration Institute framework developed by Ron Hruska, simultaneously addresses pelvic position, rib cage position, breathing function, and hamstring activation. No other single exercise targets all four of these systems simultaneously.
Step By Step Setup
Lie on your back with feet flat on a wall, hips and knees both at 90 degrees. Place a ball or rolled towel between your knees. Your lower back should be flat against the floor. If it is not, your pelvis is still in anterior tilt and the exercise has already told you something important.
The Four Steps Of The Exercise
Step one: posteriorly tilt the pelvis by digging heels into the wall gently, engaging hamstrings to pull the pelvis into posterior tilt. Step two: squeeze the ball between your knees, activating the left adductor to restore left hip internal rotation. Step three: lift hips approximately two inches off the floor, maintaining posterior tilt. Step four: inhale through your nose and exhale fully, ribs dropping down and in, obliques engaging, Zone of Apposition restoring in real time. Adding a balloon creates back pressure for even more complete exhalation.
Common Mistakes And How To Fix Them
Lifting too high allows lumbar extensors to take over. Keep the lift at two inches maximum. Breathing into the chest instead of laterally means the diaphragm is not engaging. Focus on feeling the ribs expand to the sides during inhalation. Losing the posterior tilt during the lift means the hamstrings are not maintaining the pelvic position. Reset and dig heels more firmly.
What Changes After Performing The 90/90 Hip Lift
After three sets of five breaths, stand up. Your pelvis will be in a different position. Your hamstrings will feel different. Your squat, if you test it, will feel different from the first rep. MOVECHECK includes the 90/90 Hip Lift as the cornerstone of nearly every corrective protocol because it addresses the foundational position that everything else depends on.
See This In Your Own Body
Every concept in this article is tested in the MOVECHECK assessment. Find out which patterns apply to you.
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