Exercise · Hips

Side-lying hip abduction

The same muscle as the clamshell, with a longer lever: lying on your side, you lift the whole straight top leg. Because the weight is now out at the ankle rather than the knee, the gluteus medius has considerably more to hold — which is what makes it the next step up once the clamshell is clean. The cue that matters is the small backward drift of the leg: swinging it forward hands the work to the TFL at the front of the hip, which Momentum's chart already lists as commonly tight.