Your glutes need to be thought about and worked out to be strong, but not to the detriment of the other muscles in the body. They need to be strong to support all the other activities you like to do, as I said in the previous blog, they aid running propulsion, and if you slow down running, what other propulsion are they aiding? Yep, walking. They also support you when you stand on one leg, and what happens to each leg during walking and running? You’ve got it, standing on one leg – albeit fleetingly, but walking and running simply do not work if you are not able to stand strongly on one leg for that brief moment of time.
How can you tell if your glutes are either weak, or strong?
Weak glutes could lead to back ache, hamstring aches or tightness, quad aches, hips aches, knee aches… not always though, note the ‘could lead to’.
Strong glutes could also lead to the above, if you are overworking them and causing a chain reaction of events in your muscles. So how can you tell what is going on, and why?
Generally, if you are regularly lifting weight which challenges your glutes, and you can feel them contracting during those exercises, you have strong glutes.
Activating Glutes…?
Ever heard of activating your glutes? I have spoken about it before with clients, but it is a phrase, a terminology, that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Glutes are never truly asleep, or ‘inactivated’, because like all muscles, they have a job to do and they do it. Sometimes they do it inefficiently and so some of the load of their job might shift to other muscles nearby, leading to aches and injuries there. Think of lower back aches when working out, of hamstrings and quads that tire more quickly than you expect them, that lower back niggle when you go for a long walk.
A great primer exercise for your glutes, right before you challenge them to some heavy duty lifting, is either lighter lifting with a focus on squeezing your glutes together to aid the lift, or some banded side steps with the band around the balls of your feet. Don’t fancy that? Body weight squats will do the trick just as well. Warm up the body part and joints needed for the exercise to get the most out of it. There is no definitive proof of glutes ever being able to be asleep or switched off, so don’t believe anyone who claims that is exactly what is going on with you and that is why you need to ‘activate the glutes’. Warming up your muscles before harder work is always a good call though.
Squats and Deadlifts
The two most popular glute exercises. Ages old and still the go to for many people for one exceptionally good reason; when done well, they work.
Glutes are particularly great at the heavy lifts, the big weights on the barbell, the sense of achievement once completed, the hypertrophy effect on them. But it does not mean you have to lift big to get big results. Small weights, lifted repetitively, work just as well, just as resistance bands and bodyweight workouts. Choose what you are comfortable with and go do it.
If you are a beginner to exercise, it is always a good idea to have a trainer led session to nail good form on heavy lifts, if that is your desire, and to protect yourself from injury. And if you are not a beginner to exercise, but having problems, a refresher session with a trainer could stand you in good stead.
Get booked in online at www.astralfitness.co.uk to sort out any aches and pains that may be getting in the way of your training.
Thank you for taking time to read this week’s blog – Strong Glutes.
Don’t forget to get your next sports massage at www.astralfitness.co.uk. You can use my Booking Link or check out my website for a little further information at www.astralfitness.co.uk
We look forward to helping you.
Chloe & Jen