Stretch and Strengthen Your Lower Body With the Shin Box Get-Up

Thanks to today's 9-to-5 life, having tight hips seems inevitable. Fortunately, adding hip stretches, like the shin box get-up, to your regular rotation can help relieve tightness while also priming your hip flexors, glutes and quads for exercise.

• ​What is the shin box get-up exercise?​ It's a hip stretch that begins in the 90/90 stretch position and activates your glutes, quads and core to come to a kneeling position.
• ​What is the shin box position?​ It is the position in which you externally rotate one leg in front of you so the outside of your thigh, shin, ankle and foot are on the floor and your knee is bent to 90 degrees. Meanwhile, your back leg is internally rotated so the inside of your thigh, shin and foot are on the floor and your knee is also bent to 90 degrees. (This starting position is the same as the 90/90 stretch — more on the differences below.)
• ​What muscles does the shin box get-up work?​ It activates your hip flexors, tensor fasciae latae (thigh muscle that's responsible for hip flexion, abduction and internal rotation), glutes and adductors (inner thigh muscles), says Jen Fraboni, PT, DPT, physical therapist and creator of Jen.Health, a mobility and exercise program. When you lift your glutes off the ground, you're also activating your core.
  
  "When you include the part where you're lifting your glutes up, you're incorporating the hip flexor a little bit more, and you get to lengthen through a really particularly tight area," says Kelsey Decker, CPT, a National Strength and Conditioning Association-certified personal trainer and manager for training and experiences at StretchLab. "It really focuses on the front and back hips at the same time, so you're still getting a little bit of internal and external rotation with a lengthening stretch through that hip flexor."
  

The shin box get-up begins with internal and external rotation of your hip joints, so it's a great way to loosen things up before exercise. As you come up to a kneeling position, it stretches your hip flexors while still working external rotation of the front leg and internal hip rotation of your back leg, Decker says.

"Our hips are circular; they're a ball-and-socket joint, so we want to make sure we're using all different areas of that range of motion. In providing that internal and external rotation by switching from one side to the other, you're working through the full range of motion in your hips," Decker says.

In order to physically get into the kneeling position, you're activating your quads and glutes, which helps you stabilize as you hold the position, Decker says. You'll also activate your inner thighs (adductors) and your gluteus minimus and medius (hip abductors) as you rotate from one side to the other.

This is also why the shin box get-up is a particularly great stretch to do before a lower-body workout or a run.

"You could start in the 90/90, push up and lean back a little bit to really accentuate those hip flexors and work on that internal and external rotation. When you pop your butt back down and rotate your knees the other way and get up, you're working on getting that full range of motion that really incorporates the mobility aspect of priming your body for exercise," Decker says.

As you're getting up from the floor and transitioning into the kneeling position, you're also activating your core.

"It's activating more of your outer core, where you're starting to warm up your hips, glutes and obliques, and utilizing that with trunk support, versus your inner core, which is more like baseline pelvic and diaphragm contraction," Fraboni says.

Throughout the movement, you also want to incorporate some core bracing so your chest stays upright and your spine stays stiff.

"So even if we bend forward, we hinge from the hip and not the spine because we want to make sure this is a hip-dominant movement and not a spine-dominant movement," Fraboni says.

In your setup, you want to make sure your hips remain square throughout the movement to avoid leaning to one side. This will not only allow you to evenly distribute your weight as you come up to a kneeling position, but it will also ensure both glutes are activated and that your hips stay in alignment, Decker says.

By keeping your chest proud and spine tall, you're ensuring that the movement is driven by your hips. To help with stability and provide some momentum, Decker likes clasping her hands in front of her chest to drive her hips up to the kneeling position.

One of the biggest mistakes people make with this stretch is moving too fast and not intentionally going through the range of motion, so they miss out on the benefits, Fraboni says.

Moving slowly and making sure your chest stays upright allows your hips to drive the movement, and therefore, you're able to stretch the hips and mobilize the joint.

This shin box variation is helpful for those who can't do the seated shin box get-up on the floor because it targets internal rotation in each leg, Decker says.

"It allows for the individual to work on internal rotation of one hip, and by adding the rotation away from the leg, it will increase the stretch through the elevated leg," she says.

A regression of the shin box get-up, this stretch works on the basics of the movement before you attempt to do it on the ground, Decker says. You should feel the stretch on the elevated leg on the box or bench, and this works external rotation of the hip.

This variation helps you stretch your side body and chest, while lengthening through your hips.

If you'd like to level up the classic shin box get-up, you can try adding some load, like a dumbbell. The heavier the weight, the more challenging it will be to get off the floor.