Save your back by hip hinging.
"Bending at the hip takes the pressure off the back muscles," says Liza Shapiro, who studies primate locomotion at the University of Texas, Austin. "Instead, you engage your hamstring muscles."
And by "engage the hamstrings," she also means stretching them.
"Oh yes! In order to hip hinge properly, your hamstrings have to lengthen," Shapiro says. "If you have tight hamstrings, they prevent you from bending over easily in that way."
Tight hamstrings are extremely common in the U.S., Kennedy says. They may be one reason why hip hinging has faded from our culture: Stiff hamstrings are literally hamstringing our ability to bend properly.
But hip hinging isn't totally lost from our culture, Shapiro says. "I just saw a website on gardening that recommended it, and many yoga websites recommend bending at the hips, too."
And the hip hinging is sprinkled throughout sports. Weightlifters use it when they do what's called a deadlift. Baseball players use it when they bat. Tennis star Rafael Nadal does it when he sets up a forehand. And in football, players kneel at the line of scrimmage with beautiful hip hinging.
Toddlers younger than 3 years old are great hip hingers. They haven't learned yet from their parents to bend like a cashew.
