How to Strengthen Hips for Running: Drills for Better Running Economy

If you're wondering how to strengthen hips for running, the answer might not be as straightforward as adding more clamshells or band walks to your routine. In fact, focusing on hip strength can do far more than just prevent injury—it can improve your running economy and efficiency by minimizing energy loss, particularly during the stance phase of running, where the body interacts with the ground, all without needing to actively change your gait. Rather than trying to cue every movement while running, I believe in optimizing your biomechanics through strategic strength training and specific drills that target three important actions: load, stabilize, propel. In this article, I'll not only share my favorite drills to strengthen your hips for a smoother, more powerful stride, but also my philosophy on running economy and why I very rarely would recommend actively trying to change your gait.

Running Economy and Basic Running Biomechanics

I see the goal when it comes to optimizing your running economy from a biomechanics standpoint to minimize the energy lost with each step (a very engineer way of looking at it, my former careers both playing a role here!).

The “energy” I’m talking about comes from our bodies working and from efficient storage and release of ground reaction forces. We can optimize the former with purposeful pacing, training our different energy systems, and quality fueling. We can optimize the latter by looking at biomechanics. 

Energy lost is energy we can’t use to move forward and usually means that force is poorly distributed across your joints, which is what likely contributes to pain and other symptoms. Pain and performance are very much connected.

Because most of the energy expenditure (80%) with running is the stance phase (when one foot is on the ground), I tend to spend more effort focusing on the mechanics of that part. If you are interested, about 7% comes from the leg swing in the flight phase (which I actually think we can optimize through stance too), and then the rest is respiratory and cardiac output related.

I break up the stance phase into 3 main pieces or actions - load, stabilize, propel - and they are all connected!

We need good loading so that we can accept and store those ground reaction forces (energy) and get into solid midstance.

We need to stay strong and stable through mid-stance so that we can transfer that energy and use it for propulsion.

We need good propulsion to efficiently move forward and swing that leg through for good landing/loading.

Why Using Cues to Change Your Gait Doesn’t Work

First off, we can’t think that fast. 

Ground contact time is less than our brain's proprioceptive processing time (in other words, how our brain processes where it is in space and makes decisions based on that information). You run with pre-ingrained patterns.

It is more about how your body does those 3 pieces - load, stabilize, and propel. The body is smart and it will figure out a way to run; it will do something with those ground reaction forces. Trying to force your body to do it a different or “better” way while running without getting at the heart of why your body is doing what it’s doing usually ends up creating other compensations on top.

I’ve worked with many athletes who have actively tried to change their gait based on only a gait assessment, but in the end, they layered more compensation on top and created more pain in other places in the body. We end up having to peel back even more layers to “fix” it.

Occasionally, and if necessary, I’ll cue a nice forward lean from the ankles (only if I know they first can actually “stack,” which is part of the assessment process I talk about below), or focus on cadence, rhythmic relaxing breathing, or other simple tweaks, but never to actively try to change their stride.

What I Do With My Athletes Instead

With my athletes we take a holistic look at the body and what strategies it uses for loading, stabilizing, and propelling and where the body might be doing it less efficiently. We look at the foot, knee, hip, pelvis, torso, rib cage, shoulders… all of it together.

We use a strategic set of movement and postural assessments along with gait analysis to get a FULL picture of what’s going on. We use intentional strength training and strategic drills with our running warm-ups to train the body to load, stabilize and propel more efficiently so that when you run, you just run - freely and with joy!

How to Strengthen Hips for Running: Load Stabilize Propel in Action

Having strong stable hips requires:

• The ability to access the range of motion needed at your hips in all 3 planes of motion - hip flexion/extension, abduction/adduction, internal/external rotation.
• Strength through those ranges of motion.
• The ability to move in and out of those ranges dynamically - specifically “catching” yourself in midstance and propelling forward through toe-off.

When all of this isn’t happening in your running stride, one thing you might see is a hip drop likely accompanied by some hip or knee pain. I wrote about this in more depth last year related to the hip drop specifically.

Typically, things like hip hikes, clamshells and band walks are given to help with countering that hip hike in the name of strengthening gluteus medius. It makes sense on the surface, if the hip is dropping, hip hikes and glute med strength should help keep it up...

 ...but that never worked for me, so I went searching for answers.

While glute med strength is an important part of the equation,I see the hip drop more as a symptom of the inability to organize your center of gravity over and truly load onto that stance leg.

To organize your center of gravity over and truly load onto that stance leg at midstance requires:

• internal rotation at the pelvis
• hip flexion
• knee tracking over toes
• foot moving into pronation
• internal obliques on that side engaged
• length on the opposite side

Then, I think of moving out of midstance as riding that wave. The greatest amount of force we put into the ground happens through midstance, after which we move into a more “hip locked” position, creating a more rigid lever to toe off through. The hip lock position at toe off is essentially the opposite of the movement at midstance: 

• external rotation at the pelvis
• hip extension
• foot moving into supination
• internal obliques on the opposite side engaged
• length on the stance side

How to Strengthen Hips for Running: Try These Exercises

This all makes more sense when you can see it and feel it! So give these drills a try.

This first one practices moving from internal rotation and hip flexion to hip extension through that hip lock position. Hiking that opposite hip helps create the stability needed to get that full hip extension.

This next one practices that same idea but moving more dynamically.

Finally, adding a little power to those positions.

Yes, these all exaggerate the movements a bit. You don’t go into that much of a hinge or hip shift at midstance and you don’t hike your opposite hip up that much at toe off. When you are strong and stable through these end ranges, the natural movements of running are smooth like butter!

Again, this is not something I want you to think about or try to do while you are running. The power in drills is to break down the skills needed and practice them outside of your running to give your body more ability to use that skill while you are running.

All three of these make great additions to your strength training accessory work to help nail this skill!

Give them a try and let me know how they feel!

Next On Your Reading List:
Unlocking Peak Performance: Exploring the Five Skills Framework for Efficient Running

Glutes And Pelvic Floor, How to Load Better, Improve Rotation, Run with Less Pain

Older Runners, Good New and Bad: The Fountain of Youth for Female Runners