All about the Lowers
Gibson needs to focus on some key components on top of his normal workout and conditioning. He must strengthen his hip abductors as well as stretch his hip adductors. Your hip abductors are a group of muscles comprising typically on the outside of your leg. They are strong muscles but are often overlooked by most.
While they also aid in some hip rotation their prime role is to move your leg laterally. Specifically for Gibson, they are the prime muscles he uses to push off from side to move across the crease.
With such quick movements, if these muscles are not strong, compensation occurs to perform the movement. This makes muscles that don’t typically do this motion aid in the movement. It causes potential for injury because the additional muscles are doing a job they aren’t suited for. Compensating is a huge reason for injury and Gibson has to make sure he’s doing everything he can to allow his muscles to do their proper jobs, not other muscles jobs.
As the video shows, Gibson is using a strong push off from his hip abductors. That means it puts stress on the muscles that work opposite, his hip adductors. They are the muscles that bring your leg back to and past the mid-line of your body.
These muscles are often tight in most people that do intense training and not enough stretching. Also, these are the muscles that were most likely injured due to being tight or having a muscle imbalance with the abductors.
Gibson has to thoroughly stretch this area to remain extremely flexible. As much as strength is needed in sports, it’s the flexibility component that gets lost in the shuffle sometimes. People don’t take stretching as serious as they should.
If someone builds up one muscle but doesn’t make them, and then other muscles that work opposite it flexible, it doesn’t matter. Injuries will happen and perhaps more so than before. The human body wasn’t made for the positions Gibson puts his in. So even more so than some others, he needs to take stretching and being flexible seriously.