The Importance of Great Glutes
Today, I have an important topic!
Do you have low back pain, knee pain, hamstring issues, or just want to start moving better?
It's time to wake up your booty and start moving better and avoiding pain!
Your gluteus maximus muscle is one of the biggest, most powerful muscles in the body. It does a lot of work keeping you upright and moving. It's directly responsible for extending the hip, or bringing your leg backwards.
Your glutes are a important muscle for standing up from a seated position, climbing stairs, doing squats and lunges, and even just standing and walking.
To do these movements well and without pain it's imperative to have proper functioning glute muscles.
The unfortunate part about glute max is it tends to be a sleepy muscle. Even when doing important butt centered movements like lunges, our bodies have a clever way of compensating and using other muscles instead of the large hip muscles.
There are many reasons for lazy glute muscles with the main culprits being:
sitting a lot during the day
not being aware of how proper movement feels
When these compensation patterns happens for too long, dysfunction and pain occur!
Your glute muscles should be the driver for a lot of your important core and lower body movements! Lets talk about how to get that booty functional and maybe even a little more perky like Beyonce’s. ;)
Glute Tips
Be aware! Pay attention when you are doing simple things like walking. When your leg comes back in your stride pay attention to if your glute max is contracting, it needs to!
Be sure to squeeze when you are doing glute specific work, like glute bridges or kettle bell swings! Gary and Will at Coastal Strength & Fitness work hard to make the workouts balanced and beneficial. Get the most out of them by doing the exercises with contracted glutes!
Get an assessment by a professional. If you are still having a hard time getting those glutes to fire, your brain may be having a hard time finding them. If you suffer from chronic low back pain, hamstring pain, knee pain or hip pain, it may be that you need to get assessed to find the compensators and deal with those areas and get those glutes to work!
The gluteus maximus muscles are large important muscles that we need to be able to move well to reach all our fitness goals! Stay healthy and start waking up those sleepy glutes today!
If you are in the Coastal, VA area and want help with your glutes or a sports massage, check me out at Momentum Massage and Bodywork.