OPAL Movement Therapy

11/09/2025

Have you heard the news??
OPAL is on YouTube! 🎥🎉

In October, we covered knee pain and this month, we’ve been breaking down all things low back pain!

We wanted a place to go more in-depth and share longer form content so if you like what you see on our IG & Facebook, then you’ll love what’s on our channel!

We post every Wednesday and cover different topics each month so subscribe, like, and hit the bell to get notified when we post 🔔

If there's something specific you'd like for us to cover in a future video, drop it in the comments below! This channel was made with YOU in mind and we want to post videos that support your journey to pain-free movement 💙

Check us out at YouTube.com/ ✨📱💻

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11/09/2025

Hip hinges are called hip hinges for a reason-- the hips are the primary movers!!

If you are struggling to isolate the hip movement in a hinge, RDL, squat, etc., kneeling hip hinges can be a great drill to train this concept.

We recommend holding your hands in a C shape position to grab your thigh bones or femurs and really appreciate how they move back behind the knee when you hinge and they move forward to return you to an upright position.

Our glutes and hip muscles control the thigh bone and these are hard muscles to connect to, which is why the low back loves to get involved!

Try this drill in kneeling to tune into what your thigh bones are doing-- or not doing!

It's key to start fully upright or in a neutral position with the torso, hip, and knee stacked vertically. Sometimes the glutes have to work just to get you to start upright!

Then hinge at the hips and appreciate the thigh bones moving backwards as the glutes stretch.

To return to upright, the glutes shorten to move the thigh bone forward over the knee again.

May the hinge be with you!

Need more help?💙
Schedule your FREE Discovery Call by clicking the link in our bio or by going to OPALMovementTherapy.com/contact-us 📲💻✨

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11/08/2025

You asked, we answered!
How do I get my quads less dominant and my glutes stronger?? 🤔

It’s really hard to turn off a dominant muscle group like the quads. Instead of focusing on temporary treatments like stretching, massaging, and loosening up the quads, we want to improve activation and strength of the underperforming muscle group!

To help the glutes perform better, we need to make sure we can turn them on!

This looks like doing glute bridges and making sure you’re actually feeling the glutes and not the quads! It can help to widen your feet or bring your feet closer to your hips. It can also help to add a band around the knees to help turn on the glutes.

Once we can feel the glutes consistently working on bridges, we need to apply that skill to single leg bridges, hip hinges, deadlifts, squats, lunges, etc.

If you don’t feel the glutes working on an exercise, they aren’t just going to magically show up-- which means the quads will continue to perform better!

Have more questions for us?
Drop them in the comments below 👇

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11/08/2025

When stepping down from a stair or step, it's not uncommon to have discomfort in the knees, but it's not normal! 🦵

If your knee is talking to you when you go down stairs or steps, it indicates that the movement is overloading the knee in some way.

The most common movement fault we see for step downs is that most people keep their torso upright and just drive the knee forward to step down. This puts a lot of load on the knee and the quad in this movement rather than equally using the hip, knee, and ankle to lower down the step.

When we hinge at the hip before stepping down, we can use our glutes and hip in addition to our quad and our knee.

In this clip, we are training the concept of hip hinging during step downs, so the goal isn’t about touching the ground - it’s about getting the hip to kick in instead of relying on the knee.

With practice, learning what it feels like to use the hip instead of just the knee will carryover to daily activities like stepping down stairs or hiking downhill.

Need more help?💙
Schedule your FREE Discovery Call by clicking the link in our bio or by going to OPALMovementTherapy.com/contact-us 📲💻✨

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11/07/2025

Top 4 Exercises That We Cue The Most in The Clinic 🔥🦵

We love these exercises and find that a lot of our clients have room to improve their form on them! Save & practice these with Dr. Morgan during your next workout!

◾Kettlebell RDL
◾Bodyweight Squats
◾Reverse Lunges
◾Step Ups

Need more help?💙
Schedule your FREE Discovery Call through the link in our bio or by going to OPALMovementTherapy.com/contact-us 📱💻✨

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⌨️ Drop a comment or question
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11/07/2025

We love a good step up exercise to assess your hip strength and control on one leg.

We can gather a lot of information about how you move simply by watching HOW you step up and down.

From the back view, here are a few of the things we look for:

▪️Are your hips facing forward like headlights on the road?

▪️Are you twisting your torso or spine when you lift your leg up to step on the box?

▪️Is your pelvis staying level as you step up and down?

▪️Or are you dropping one hip on the way up or down?

This gives us a ton of insight into what muscles you may or may not be using to accomplish this.

Next time you do step ups, get a friend to film it or set up a camera and see what your hips want to do!

Need more help?💙
Schedule your FREE Discovery Call by clicking the link in our bio or by going to OPALMovementTherapy.com/contact-us 📲💻✨

💙 Like if this was helpful
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11/06/2025

Dr. Morgan caught up with some of her fav Rogue Running peeps for a 4 mile jog, followed by a dip in Barton Springs! 💙

There's nothing like a jog & dip to start your work day!! 🏃‍♀️💨

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11/06/2025

We are super picky about calf raises!!!🦵

It's really easy to cheat on calf raises and we are committed to helping our clients unlock the secret to an optimal calf raise.🔥

Some of the most common cheats we see:

▪️Shifting weight from the big toe to the pinky toe

▪️Flaring the ankles out & hanging on the joint

▪️Lifting up into the calf raises instead of pushing the ground away

▪️Bending the knees and morphing it into a mini squat

A high-quality single leg calf raise is essential for walking, running, and hopping. Our benchmark for calf strength is the ability to do 25 single leg calf raises with optimal form.

Can you do it???🤔🤔🤔

Need more help?💙
Schedule your FREE Discovery Call by clicking the link in our bio or by going to OPALMovementTherapy.com/contact-us 📲💻✨

💙 Like if this was helpful
⌨️ Drop a comment or question
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🌐 OPALMovementTherapy.com
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11/05/2025

At OPAL, our goal isn't just to get you out of pain - it's to help you stay out of it for good!!🔥

Our DPTs help bridge the gap between rehab and performance so that you can keep doing what you love, for life!

Want to work with us?💙
Schedule your FREE Discovery Call and work with us anywhere in the world by clicking the link in our bio or visiting OPALMovementTherapy.com/contact-us 📱 ✨

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11/05/2025

Howdy, Facebook friends!

We just uploaded our 2nd video in our Back Pain series and this one covers how to deadlift without low back pain! 🏋️‍♀️

If you experience pain or tightness during/after deadlifting then this video is for you!! It may be a common experience but it's not normal and Dr. Morgan wants to teach you all how to deadlift optimally so you can lift for life!

Check it out here: https://youtu.be/PSOGP8azeDo
Don't forget to hit subscribe and tap the bell icon so you can be notified when we upload new videos! 💙

Low back pain with deadlifts is common but that doesn't mean it's normal.In this video, Dr. Morgan Riggins, PT, DPT, FAAOMPT from OPAL Movement Therapy break...

11/05/2025

Lunges are one of our favorite strength exercises because they are a great opportunity to work on 4 of the 5 movement principles we teach at OPAL and they are a great single leg exercise that can build strength and prevent injuries.

They are also SUPER HARD to do well.

We often see the low back getting too involved in lunges, which indicates the legs are not doing their job and more work is getting transferred to the back, which can feed into back pain and other injuries.

The most common movement errors we see:
▪️Hips twisting instead of facing forward like headlights on the road
▪️Back leg so far back that the low back has to extend and twist
▪️Hip and knee diving in, instead of staying stacked

If you can clean up a few of these errors, your lunges will be more effective and will put the work into your core and legs instead of your low back!

Need more help?💙
Schedule your FREE Discovery Call by clicking the link in our bio or by going to OPALMovementTherapy.com/contact-us 📲💻✨

💙 Like if this was helpful
⌨️ Drop a comment or question
🌍 Share with the world
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🫶 Follow for more
📲 DM us for a FREE Discovery Call
🌐 OPALMovementTherapy.com
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11/04/2025

3 Exercises to Help You Optimize Your Hip Hinge 🔥

Learning how to hip hinge optimally is essential for activities in daily life as well as for many of the exercises we do in the gym like squats and deadlifts!

Practice these three exercises that require little to no equipment at home to get started:

◾Kneeling Hip Hinge
◾Hip Hinge Progression with a Bench/Chair
◾Hip Hinge to Squat with a Stick

Need more guidance?
Dr. Morgan unpacks the Hip Hinge in further detail in our digital course: Hip Hinge Foundations!

Click the link in our bio or go to OPALMovementTherapy.com/digitalcourses to learn more and get access today! 💙
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