The majority of people start out in the gym with a buddy that has some sort of experience. Its rare that your lifting journey starts with a well informed, well educated established coach or athlete. When we first step foot inside a gym the first-person that gets recognition is the guy with a huge chest or arms are shoulders. This gives the young gym goer some purpose or aspiration then the training begins…usually consists of training the muscles that the young lifter can see Chest, Shoulders, arms, back and legs (unintentionally neglecting hamstrings).
This approach will yield a result, some strength in the bench press some overall hypertrophy of major muscle groups. During this time undoubabtly this will be said somewhere along the way “ squats, deadlifts and lunges will hit your glutes hard” By no means is this statement wrong but there has been some advancements lately by a brilliant guy and coach by the name of Bret Contreras who extensively studied the activity of the hip girdle and surrounding musculature namely the glutes (glutei maximi, glutei mediei and glutei minimi) The role of the glutes has always fascinated me as they are always unseen but always talked about and I couldn’t wrap my head around why my glutes only became sore after uni lateral lower limb movements not the already mentioned back squat and deadlift. A few notable authors and coaches have claimed that the king of the gluteal is the squat and deadlift…
The repeating theme here is that axial loaded (top to bottom) is the key to getting lovely lady lumps. Here is an easy to understand example of why this doesn’t make sense, all muscles have a line of pull, which is on display when competitive body builders become very lean. The striations of the muscle dictate the pennation angle and line of pull, notice a body builders striated glutes the fibres run predominantly mediolateral (side to side). . Yes of course the glutes are hip extensors but in combination with other hip extensors during compounds movements are they really being worked as hard as what we think? EMG research has proven this to be the case that smaller side-to-side movements and anteroposterior (front to back) movements have shown far greater EMG readings then a 1rm back squat (Contreras, 2013).
Here is a list of glute exercises in order of progression that everyone should be doing
Supine hip extension (glute bridge)
Single leg Glute Bridge
Fire hydrants
Clams
Band clams
Quadruped hip extension
Quadruped hip hyperextension
Light band pull through
Reverse hypers
KB swings
Hip thrusts
Barbell hip thrusts
Back extensions
Band back extensions
Please notice that all exercises listed are either anteroposterior or mediolateral loaded.
IMPORTANT
90% of the population cannot access there glutes as we have slowly progressed to a society of seat dwellers , it is imperative that hip flexors , ITB (Illiotiobial band)and TFL (tensor fascia Latae) , hamstrings , adductors and erectors be addressed with stretching mobilisation or manual therapy to allow for glute function . If a client or acquaintance
You know likes to squat and their predominant DOMS are in quads and low back please advise them to read this or any of the work by Bret Contreras.
Training when you are a poor student
Different approach to strength
http://nathanielhodges.blogs.com/my-blog/2016/02/unconventional-client-unconventional-coaching.html
Nat
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