Who Should Do?
Athletes
The fire hydrant exercise can help athletes increase their hip stability, strengthen their glutes, and improve their overall body strength. Stable hips will help prevent lower-body injury by increasing joint stability.
Strong glutes also enhance explosive power when driving out of the athletic stance position. Examples of sports that will benefit from this are football, rugby, and wrestling.
People With Sedentary Lifestyles
Sedentary people often have tight hips and weak hip abductors and glutes. This can result from prolonged periods of sitting and lack of exercise for the lower body muscles. Weak lower body muscles reduce stability and balance, which may increase fall risk. It can also make basic activities, like walking, running, and stair climbing, more challenging.
The fire hydrant is a bodyweight exercise that is very accessible for beginners. It can be done at home with no equipment. The exercise will start to develop strength and stability in the hip abductors and glutes.
Rehabilitation Patients
Rehabilitation patients who are recovering from a hip, knee, or lower back injury may benefit from the fire hydrant exercise. It is a low-impact bodyweight movement that can help rebuild a base of strength, mobility, and stability through the hips and pelvis.
Before adding this exercise to your rehabilitation program, consult with your healthcare provider. While suitable for most people, the fire hydrant may not be appropriate based on your case. Your provider will be able to give you specific guidance.
Who Should Not Do?
People With Severe Hip Pain
The fire hydrant exercise should be avoided if you are suffering from severe hip pain. Since the main movement in the fire hydrant comes from the hip, this exercise may make the pain worse. This could exacerbate any existing injury and delay the healing process.
Consult a healthcare professional for appropriate rehab exercises that will not aggravate your condition.
People With Chronic Lower Back Pain
People with chronic lower back pain should not do the fire hydrant exercise. The movement can place additional stress on the erector spinae muscle if performed incorrectly. The positioning of the exercise may also exacerbate lower back pain if you are not bracing your core properly.
We recommend seeking guidance from a physical therapist who can provide you with a safer option.
People With Poor Core Stability
If you have poor core stability, you will struggle to use proper form on the fire hydrant exercise. The positioning of this exercise demands stability from your core muscles. If you do not possess the appropriate strength, your lower back and hips are likely to sag. This may lead to lower back discomfort.
If your lower back and hips sag during this exercise, avoid it temporarily. First, build up your core stability with exercises like crunches, Russian twists, and hyperextensions.
Benefits Of The Fire Hydrant
Builds Strength
The fire hydrant exercise strengthens the hip abductor muscles. These are the gluteus medius, gluteus minimus and TFL. This will enhance your lower body power, improving your ability to run, jump, and lift.
Strong hip abductors also contribute to better stability and balance. This is essential for daily activities like climbing stairs and carrying groceries.
Strong adductors support proper knee alignment, reducing the risk of injuries such as knee pain and strain. Strengthening these muscles also supports pelvic stability. This makes daily movements like walking more efficient, improving functional mobility and quality of life.
Strong hip abductors will also help prevent injury by increasing support and stability to the hip joint and spine.
Improves Posture
The fire hydrant exercise helps improve posture by strengthening muscles that help maintain bodily alignment. These muscles are the glutes and hip abductors, which support the pelvis and spine.
Strong glutes also help prevent the pelvis from tilting forward, maintaining a neutral pelvis and lower back position. This is vital to reduce strain on the spine and prevent lower back pain. It also promotes more efficient movement, reducing injury risk while performing daily activities.
Enhances Mobility
The fire hydrant exercise works the hip abductors through their full range of motion. This increases mobility and flexibility in the hip joint. Greater hip mobility improves everyday movements like walking, squatting, and bending.
Frequently Asked Questions
Fire hydrants have a limited ability to grow the glutes due to the limited resistance of your body weight. However, you can increase the resistance with ankle weights or a resistance band. This increases muscle-building potential.
The fire hydrant primarily works the hip abductors, which are the gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, and the tensor fasciae latae. Secondary muscles that are also engaged are the gluteus maximus and hip adductors.
No, fire hydrants will not tone your thighs. This exercise does not engage the four quadricep muscles. To target them, you should do exercises like squats and leg extensions.
The number of sets and reps you should perform on the fire hydrant exercise depends on your training objective. For strength, perform 3–4 sets of 8–12. You will build endurance with 15–20 reps, while 1–5 reps against resistance will develop power.
Resources
Endomondo.com refrains from utilizing tertiary references. We uphold stringent sourcing criteria and depend on peer-reviewed studies and academic research conducted by medical associations and institutions. For more detailed insights, you can explore further by reading our editorial process.
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