Glutes are the new biceps! Or at least people talk about them enough regardless of gender to know they're a sign of strength, athleticism, and sex appeal. If you've had a hard time growing your glutes in the past you are not alone. Due to the nature of modern work culture, sitting and lack of movement; a lot of people have lost the ability to properly contract their glutes. I'm here to give you the low down on a few secrets that can get you mentally more connected with your glutes so you can make those buns grow.
1. Choose exercises that teach you the difference between your glute maximus and medius. Prolonged sitting can make it hard to distinguish the difference between these two muscles. If you can control it, you can grow it.
2. Understand the difference between a neutral pelvis or anterior/posterior tilted. The ability to have better pelvic control makes contracting the glutes so much easier. Exercises that practice these different positions tremendously help in allowing your brain to understand how to contract your glutes around your pelvic position.
3. Pay attention to each glute individually; work them individually too. You may not realize that one glute is doing more work than the other (or not working at all). The better control you have of them independently the better they'll work together during compound movements.
4. If you can't contract your glutes properly static holds are a great place to start. Holding a side-lying leg raise for two minutes for example can allow a person to distinguish between the glute maximus or medius on each side independently and also meet all the criteria above.
5. Once your glutes are warm and firing properly, now go hit all the big glute exercises you see on the youtube videos. Here's a secret: most of these exercises are variations of squat, deadlift, or thrust. Regardless of what the program calls for if you do all of the above first; this step will go so much better!
6. Breathe and contract your core. Cause it's that important for all of the exercise.
Is this a big long explanation talking about the beginnings of how to warm up your glutes; yes it is, and you're welcome. Now go grow them buns.
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