22/07/2026
Montyās Moves
Ep. 1: My Morning Spine Reset
1. *Hip hike marching* is one of my favourite ways to wake my hips up first thing in the morning.
Keep both legs straight. Lift one hip, then stamp the straight leg firmly into the floor, making solid contact through your heel. Alternate from side to side for about a minute.
That heel strike sends force from your heel, through your shin, knee and femur, and into your pelvis. It helps improve how force is transferred through the lower body while training your lateral hip stabilisers to drive down with strength.
The stamping leg also provides an impact stimulus that can help support bone health, while the opposite side works your obliques and quadratus lumborum (QL). Together, these muscles help control your pelvis during walking, improve long-striding gait, and contribute to healthier lumbo-pelvic mechanics.
Itās a simple movement, but itās one I come back to regularly because it gets me shifting from left to right and leaves my hips feeling switched on before the day starts.
2. Then I follow it with a *segmented spine extension*.
I focus on lifting my upper rib cage towards the ceiling first, extending through the upper back one segment at a time. Once my thoracic spine has opened up, I let my eyes follow towards the ceiling, allowing a small amount of comfortable neck extension. This switches on the muscles of the lower back while giving the muscles across the front of my bodyāmy chest, abdominals and the front of my neckāa good stretch.
Together, these two movements take me from my heels all the way through to my neck. Itās a simple full-chain movement sequence that gets everything shifting before the day starts. Think of it as giving your spine a bit of WD-40 after a night in bed or a day at your desk.
Have a go and let me know how your hips and back feel afterwards. š