Why you should never bend at the hips

Put your hand on your hips. No, stop reading and put your hands on your hips — please.

Good, thanks, I see no problem there.

Now bend at your hips

Did you bend where you had your hands? Yes of course you did.

Is that where you usually bend? Yes, of course it is.

Is it where you should be bending? No it isn’t. Why not? Because your hips are not your hip joints. Your hips are nowhere near your hip joints. Stand up and stretch your hand out as wide as you can (as though you were trying to play a really big chord on the piano). With that stretched-out hand, put your thumb-tip on your hip and reach down your leg with the little-finger-tip. Where your little-finger-tip is, that’s where you should be bending.

Do I hear you protest? “But you’re asking me to break my thigh bone in two!”

At first sight it would seem so, wouldn’t it?

Maybe we should check

Here’s how to check. Get two small sticky labels (or two bits of sellotape). Now stretch your hand down your right thigh again and find where your little finger reaches. Stick one of your labels there. Now do the same on your left thigh with the other label. Done that?

When you’ve done that, lie down on the floor. Keep your knees bent and your feet on the floor.

Now put your fingers on the labels on your thighs and raise your right foot. Raise your right foot until it’s about foot-stool-high off the ground. Then put the foot back beside your left foot and raise it again. Do that a few times. Notice where you are bending when you do that. Is it where your hips are or is it where your sticky label is?

Congratulations, my budding Uri Geller, you’ve just learned how to bend your thigh bone.

On second thoughts, that can’t be right. What you’ve really done is (drum-roll please): you’ve discovered your hip joint. No I’m not making fun of you. I just want to make sure you remember how unexpected it was finding you had a joint down there. Because, if you remember your surprise at finding your hip joint down there, you’ll also remember where your hip joint really is. Otherwise, you’ll forget.

So the reason you shouldn’t bend at your hips is that your hip joints aren’t there. Your hip joints are about eight inches lower down.

But you do bend at the hips

Yes you do bend at your hips. It’s normal to bend at your hips: normal but a really bad idea. It’s a really bad idea because your hips are not your hip joints.

So what were you bending? You were bending your spine. Every time you bent for any reason you bent your spine. You bent your spine hard.

That doesn’t sound like a good idea, does it? So remember: eight inches lower down (that’s twenty centimetres).

So what are you going to do about it?

Do I hear you say “practise bending at my hip joints”? I do hope so.

If you find it easy to bend at your new-found hip joints, good for you. I anticipate that you’ll find it difficult — just as difficult as you found it to believe that your hip joints were down there in the first place.

If you find it difficult, I can help, just ask. (If you’re a subscriber, just reply to your email, otherwise, there’s a contact form in the side-bar).

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