Health & Fitness

Fixing Hip Pain for Lifters: The Foot-to-Core Connection You’re Ignoring

Glute activation tools for athletes with Drew using proprioceptive training

Drew Lost 70 Pounds—But Fixing His Feet Finally Killed the Pain

Introduction: More Than Just Weight Loss

Drew dropped 70 pounds in two years. Strength went up. Conditioning improved. Nutrition got dialed in. But there was one thing we couldn’t shake: that nagging hip pain.

It wasn’t every day, but it kept showing up—during squats, walks, or even just standing for too long. We were tired of working around it. If we wanted to keep building a stronger, more resilient body, this couldn’t follow us into the next phase.

The Real Problem Wasn’t the Hip

Like most lifters, Drew stretched. He foam rolled. He tried banded hip openers. Nothing held. The pain kept coming back.

So I took a hard look at his movement—and the issue became obvious: he had no internal rotation in his hips. And the reason? His feet weren’t doing their job.

If your feet don’t send clear signals to your brain, everything above them breaks down. That’s what we were dealing with.

The Missing Link: Naboso Wedges

We brought in Naboso textured foot wedges—a sensory tool designed to wake up the feet and improve proprioceptive input (that’s your body’s sense of position and movement).

These aren’t gimmicks. They’re legit tools that improve how the nervous system reads the ground and responds.

I had Drew stand on them barefoot during:

  • Core training

  • Glute activation drills

  • Split stance movements

  • Stability work

What Changed

Here’s what the wedges helped us do:

  • Reconnect the feet to the core – No more tension leaks during training.

  • Unwind the pelvis – Internal rotation came back without force or strain.

  • Teach ground-up strength – He stopped muscling through lifts and started owning them.

Pain started to fade within weeks. Gait improved. Lifts felt smoother. And the best part—we didn’t change the program. We just upgraded the foundation.

Why This Matters

Drew had already done the hard part—he dropped 70 pounds and rebuilt his life. But this lingering issue was robbing him of full capacity.

We weren’t going to let it stick around.

If your hips feel stuck or your low back always feels tight, the issue might not be in your hips at all—it might be in your feet.

Most lifters ignore this. They focus on where the pain shows up instead of where it starts. And they keep spinning their wheels.

The Foundation Always Comes First

Here’s what this taught us—again:

  • You can’t out-stretch a stability problem.

  • You can’t out-train bad sensory input.

  • If your foundation (your feet) is weak or shut down, everything else suffers.

This wasn’t about softening training. It was about building it right. Now Drew moves better, feels better, and trains harder—without dragging that hip pain around anymore.

Final Word

We didn’t need a new warm-up. We didn’t need another tool. We needed to reconnect the chain—from the ground up.

That’s what the Naboso wedges did.

And now, Drew’s free to move forward.