Shin box - Switch

The shin box switch is a great exercise to unlock tight hips and train the glutes. Tight hips results out of longer sitting periods which is very common in our current society. We guess while you are reading this post, you are sitting in the train, school or at work ;-). Prolonged sitting has established itself in our everyday life. We guess, we are sitting more than we stand on our feet. While we sit, our gluteal muscle is inactive, which leads finally to tight hips and could lead to lower back pain at the end.
In other words: “The Shin Box Switch covers many bases, including working on hip internal/external rotation, improving the length of the hip flexors, and activating the glute muscles.”
[Quote: link]

How to do it:

• Starting point:
• You are in the basic shin box position (link)
• Keep your torso upright during the whole exercise
• Your feet are planted on the floor and should keep to the floor during the exercise
• Movement:
• Start slowly to rotate our hips
• Your knees lift up parallel
• At the same time, stretch your legs to get into the middle split
• Try to spread legs as far as possible
• Keep arms extended straight in front of you as you do this
• Once your soles of foot get full contact to the ground, your knees are on its highest point of the movement
• Continue the slow rotation and lower your knees until you are in the inverted initial position
• Repeat it up to 10 times per side
• Adaption if your hips are already too tight to rotate:
• Go in the general shin box position and lean back to place your hands behind your bo
• The leaning backward position takes some tensions out of the exercise
• Try not to put too much weight in your hands, just use them as stability
• Do the same movement like explained above

Summary - Parallels to the floorball goalkeeper gaming:
The shin box switch trains the internal and external rotation at the same time and we advise you to include some form of the shin box exercises into your warm-up routine. Do this exercise always concentrated. While you are doing mobility exercises, it is important that you are 100% focused. This means do not only do the movement with your body, the head also has to signalize the body that you need this mobility. Watch out for other goalkeepers next season and check when and how often they use the shin box switch. One floorball goalie movement where this exercise is used, is the Post to post butt switch.