I have an absolute favorite exercise that I have been doing for the past five years or so. I know exactly where I learned it and exactly why I like it. However, I am considerably less clear on what it is actually called.
Nike Training Club calls the exercise “quadruped hip circles.” I learned it from one of the app’s hip and glute activation workouts and have incorporated it into my exercise routines ever since. Unfortunately, the problem with that name becomes apparent if you search for instructions on how to perform quadruped hip circles on the internet. Most of the results describe a completely different exercise.
I use Nike Training Club workouts fairly often, and the app itself has an interesting history. Before the COVID-19 shutdown, NTC operated on a “freemium” model, with some workouts available to everyone and additional programs and workouts behind its Premium subscription paywall. In March 2020, as gyms closed and people suddenly found themselves exercising at home, Nike temporarily opened the Premium content to everyone. A few months later, the company made that change permanent. Six years later, NTC remains one of my go-to sources for exercise routines, including the hip and glute activation workout where I first encountered today’s mysterious hip circles.
That brings me back to the problem with the exercise’s name. According to the internet, the exercise known as quadruped hip circles also begins on hands and knees, but then one knee leaves the floor, and the leg moves through a large circular motion at the hip. That is not what I am talking about today.
In the NTC version, both knees remain on the floor. Starting on all fours with the hands underneath the shoulders and knees underneath the hips, the pelvis moves slowly through a large circle. I think of it as tracing a circle with my tailbone. After several repetitions in one direction, I reverse and circle the other way. The movement is slow and controlled, and I generally make the circles progressively larger as my hips loosen up. Whatever its proper name is, I love this exercise.
I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting at a computer. I have previously shared how I try to intersperse long stretches at my desk with periodic exercise breaks. Since it clocks in at just over five minutes, the NTC hip and glute activation workout is one of the routines in my regular rotation. Quadruped hip circles are my favorite part because I can feel an immediate difference between how my hips move before and after doing them.
After sitting for several hours, my hips often feel tight and achy. A few slow circles in each direction begin working through that stiffness. By the time I finish, my hips generally feel much looser and more fluid. There aren’t many exercises I do where the immediate effect is that obvious to me.
There is a distinction here between mobility and flexibility that helps explain what I like about the movement. Flexibility generally describes the available range of motion around a joint, while mobility includes the ability to actively control movement through that range. A static stretch can certainly be useful, but quadruped hip circles have me actively moving my pelvis through different positions rather than finding one position and holding it.
The circular path is also part of the appeal. A lot of exercises move the body primarily in one direction. With these hip circles, the pelvis moves forward, sideways, backward, and around again as one continuous movement. I can also adjust the size of the circle according to how my hips feel that particular day. There is no requirement to force the movement to some predetermined endpoint.
I suspect this is one reason the exercise feels particularly good after sitting. Spending several hours at a desk keeps my hips within a relatively small range of motion. Getting onto the floor and deliberately moving the pelvis through a much larger range asks those joints and surrounding muscles to do something different. I don’t need a complicated physiological explanation to establish the part I can actually observe. I start the exercise feeling tight and usually finish it moving more comfortably.
Naturally, I also like to think there is a tennis benefit. Our sport requires considerably more from my hips than sitting at my desk. Groundstrokes involve rotation. Moving around the court requires acceleration, deceleration, and changes of direction. Wide balls and awkward defensive positions inevitably demand that the body moves through ranges that don’t appear very often during normal daily activity. As I get older, maintaining my ability to flow comfortably through those positions has become increasingly relevant to how I train.
I won’t go so far as to claim that doing quadruped hip circles will directly improve anyone’s tennis. However, I spend a substantial portion of my day asking my hips to remain relatively stationary and another portion expecting them to move freely around a tennis court. An exercise that reliably helps me transition from feeling tight to feeling mobile seems useful in bridging those two states.
That may also explain why this particular exercise has become an indelible part of my routine. Plenty of exercises have come and gone as I experiment with different training ideas. Quadruped hip circles require no equipment, take very little time, and provide a clear and immediate benefit.
I am going to continue calling them quadruped hip circles because that is what Nike Training Club used when I learned the exercise. Whatever the proper name is, I am certain that I love them.
