The Hip Hinge
The hip hinge is a good movement for people to learn early in their strength training journey. It’s the basis for many lower body strength and power exercises, such as deadlifts and swings, so getting this movement down opens the door to more advanced training options. Being able to hinge at the hips also allows for safer and more efficient movement in both sport and everyday life.
A proper hinge involves pushing the hips back while maintaining a neutral spine and a slight bend in the knees. Some people learn the hinge pretty quickly, but for most it isn’t that intuitive (compared to a squat, for example) and takes a lot of practice a repetition to master.
Holding a dowel or piece of PVC pipe on someone’s back is a good way to teach the hinge, especially if they’re having trouble keeping their back flat. The dowel should be in contact with three points: the back of the head, between the shoulder blades, and on the top of the butt.
With a slight bend in the knees, push the hips straight back to the wall, while keeping your weight balanced between your forefoot and heel. The dowel should maintain three points of contact throughout the entire movement. Losing contact at any point is a sign that your form might be breaking down somewhere.
The most common errors are bending too much at the knees and squatting down, or keeping the legs too straight and excessively rounding the back. You should feel this primarily in the hamstrings and glutes, not the quads (too much knee bend) or low back (too much rounding over).
The hinge won’t be a huge range of motion for most people starting out, especially if they have poor hip or hamstring flexibility. Only go as far as you can while maintaining the 3 points of contact. The range of motion will slowly improve through consistent practice and addressing hip and hamstring mobility.
Lastly, try doing hinging exercises either barefoot or in low/zero drop shoes. Shoes with an elevated heel tend to dump people forward and make it harder to push the hips back.