How the hell do you realease them then contract them as you would in a box squat?
Put your hands on the front of your hips (where your hip flexors are). Now slowly squat down, and feel them tighten as they prevent you from dropping like a rock. Squat on the box, but don’t put all your weight on it yet. Your hip flexors should still be contracted.
Now gradually put more of your weight on the box until you feel your hip flexors relax. Tense your hip flexors and relax them a few more times so you learn what it feels like for when you have an actual bar on your back and can’t use your hands.
[quote]smallmike wrote:
Put your hands on the front of your hips (where your hip flexors are). Now slowly squat down, and feel them tighten as they prevent you from dropping like a rock. [/quote]
If you were lowering yourself into a squat and contract your hip flexors, you would move faster into the deep squat, not slower.
Going from standing upright to the bottom of a squat is going into hip flexion. Contracting the hip flexors speeds the movement into hip flexion. On the contrary, the eccentric contraction of the glutes and hamstrings (both hip extensors) slows the rate of moving into hip flexion (the bottom of squat).
I think of an olympic lifter trying to jump under a clean, what is the fastest way to get low fast? Use the hip flexors to jump under the bar!
Haha, you are right, I wasn’t thinking clearly.