FLEXIBILITY SERIES HIP ROTATION

I apologize for the printing of these articles. I had a cold/sore throat that hit a lot harder than I thought it would. I even missed a day of practice. If you know me, it takes a lot to do that. The last time I missed a practice in 2002, I had my appendix removed. Priorities!
Rotation of the hip occurs internally and externally. If you stand facing a fence and lift one leg so that the femur, or bone that runs from your hip to your knee, is parallel to the ground, you can perform this test. Watch the leg from the knee to the foot. When the foot moves toward the opposite side of the body, that is internal rotation, and when the foot rotates away from the body that is external rotation. If you have a light weight at the end of a string, and watch it swing left to right you will see a similarity. There should be a 90 degree ankle maintained at the knee joint and hip joint when performing these two tests.
The tests are done with the tester placing one hand on the knee to eliminate any movement, and the other knee at the ankle. The movement is at the ankle only. There should be a 40-50 degree movement in both tests. There should be slightly more flexibility on the internal rotation form of the test. There a lot of variables involved in this test like the sport, position, sex, body mass. A gymnast or hockey goalie will probably be hyper mobile, while a nose guard will not.
One of my favorite books that covers a lot of these tests is orthopedic Physical Assessment by David J. Magee (3rd edition).
Next week is the shoulders. Thanks! acudave@yahoo.com!