🔧 Fix Your Hip Extension: Stop Hurting Your Hamstrings (and Back)

If your hamstrings always feel tight, your glutes never seem to “switch on,” or you’ve got a cranky low back after longer rides—listen up.

One of the most common and sneaky movement flaws I see in mountain bikers is a simple but powerful one:👉 Extending the hip from the wrong place.

Rather than pushing through the glutes, many riders (and even runners, lifters, and desk workers) extend from their low back or overuse their hamstrings. It’s a pattern that’s easy to miss—until it turns into pain, fatigue, or power loss.

🚩 Why It Matters

If you can't extend your hip efficiently from the glute, you’re asking other muscles to do jobs they weren’t designed for.

Here’s what can happen:

• Hamstring tendinopathy (usually high up near the sitting bone)

• Low back pain during long rides or after strength work

• Glutes that “don’t fire”, especially under load or fatigue

• Knee pain due to poor sequencing and lost stability

I’m working with a client right now dealing with persistent hamstring pain. What we’ve found isn’t just an overload issue—it’s a pattern problem. Her hamstrings were trying to stabilize her pelvis and power her leg. That’s a recipe for tendinopathy.

While we treat the symptoms, we’re rebuilding her hip extension mechanics from the ground up.

✅ Try This at Home: Glute vs. Hamstring Control Test

You don’t need a gym to check your movement quality. Try this at home and see what your body is doing.

Modified Prone Hip Extension Test

Instructions:

1. Lie on your stomach with legs straight, forehead on your hands.

2. Place a small towel or your hand under your low belly to sense movement.

3. Keeping both hip bones pressed into the floor, lift one leg straight up just a few inches.

4. Don’t bend your knee. Don’t twist your pelvis. Just lift.

Ask yourself:

• Do you feel the work mostly in your glute, or in your hamstring?

• Does your low back arch or lift off the floor?

• Does your pelvis rock or twist?

If you felt hamstrings, low back, or movement through your pelvis—your pattern needs work.

🚴‍♂️ Even the Pros Get This Wrong

This isn’t just a beginner problem.

Legendary road sprinter Peter Sagan once spoke about how glute and pelvic dysfunction was impacting his sprint mechanics and power production. Off-season training included glute reactivation, core control drills, and pelvic stability work—exactly the kind of pattern retraining we use in rehab and S&C for MTB athletes.

For mountain bikers, this is even more critical. You spend hours in hip flexion, seated climbing or descending in a forward hinge. If your glutes aren’t firing properly, you’ll fatigue faster, lose power on punchy climbs, and risk overuse injuries in your hamstrings, back, or knees.

🛠️ 3 Drills to Rebuild Your Hip Extension

1. Glut Bridge with correct sequencing

Why: Teaches posterior pelvic tilt and glute-first drive.

• Lie on your back with feet flat on the floor.

• Flatten your low back into the floor (posterior tilt).

• Drive heels into the floor and lift hips, squeezing glutes.

• Keep ribs down, no arching.

✅ Focus on glute squeeze, not height.🔁 3 sets of 10 reps, with a 3-sec hold at the topProgress: Add mini-band at knees or single-leg bridge

2. Bird Dog with Glute Focus

Why: Teaches hip extension while keeping trunk neutral.

• On hands and knees, extend one leg back slowly.

• No twisting, arching, or shifting.

• Glute should drive the movement, not the back.

🔁 3 sets of 8 reps/sideProgress: Add resistance band or ankle weight

3. Kickstand RDL with Dowel

Why: Reinforces hip hinge with proper trunk control.

• Hold a dowel vertically along your spine (3 points of contact: head, mid-back, tailbone).

• Do a kickstand RDL, feeling the hip move without losing the dowel contact.

• Glutes drive the return.

🔁 3 sets of 6–8 reps/sideProgress: Add dumbbell or KB to the opposite hand

💡 Takeaway

Fixing your hip extension isn’t just about solving pain—it’s about unlocking strength and stability that translates into real performance on the bike. If your glutes can’t do their job, something else will. And it’s usually a part of the body that’s already working overtime.

This isn’t about activation fluff—it’s about retraining patterns so you can move better, feel stronger, and stop chasing the same injuries around in circles.

If this resonated, or if you want help applying this to your own training, shoot me a message. Let’s get you riding (and moving) pain-free and powerful again.