“Your glutes aren’t firing” About 6 years ago I was “diagnosed” with “inactive” gluteal muscles. I was working with an exercise therapist and my complaint was a sore hip while running. The therapist showed me how one of my glutes was stronger than the other and how my right and left quadricep muscles were mismatched in size and strength. Over the years I’ve consulted with chiropractors, massage therapists, physiotherapists, and a strength trainer about my “inactive” glutes. I’ve come a long way in terms of glute activation and strength, but even last winter I had problems with skate skiing that seem related to glute activation. So one of my primary fitness goals for this summer is to significantly strengthen my glutes and improve my hip stability. Whatever you want to call it – inactive glutes, glute weakness, glute amnesia – it’s a common problem, so I’ll share my strategy. Nothing in my plan is specific to nordic skiing, but I will use skate roller skiing as an adjunct to my glute training to help me make the connection between exercise and real-life activity. Disclaimer: I’m not a strength and conditioning coach. I’m a recovering glute amnesiac. I’m not an expert on the topic, but I’m an expert at getting expert advice, and I know what it’s like to be a glute weakling. How to crush confidence and become a basketcase Remember the exercise therapist who first alerted me to my glute problem? I’m grateful to her for getting me started, but in retrospect I think her approach slowed my progress. The exercises she taught me focussed on teaching me to fire my glutes properly. Most often my hamstrings would fire before it was their turn. My therapist was constantly fine tuning my position and poking my muscles, trying to get the muscles in my posterior chain to fire in the correct sequence. I’d leave her office with a list of homework exercises, but without her guidance, I’d have no idea if I was firing my muscles properly, or not. That idea – that you have to learn to activate your muscles correctly before strengthening them – might be correct from a physiological point of view, but from a psychological perspective, it’s a disaster. The overwhelming message I internalized was that I was body incompetent and a glute basketcase. It wasn’t until I started legit strengthening exercises that I made progress and started to feel my glutes working in everyday ways. I really wish I’d been given serious strength exercises earlier, along with the reassurance that I wasn’t some sort of genetic freak, uniquely unqualified to own and operate a set of human gluteal muscles. I think there’s a bias in the rehab industry towards working on “activation” prior to strengthening, but in my opinion, it’s a chicken and egg argument and it’s silly to think that one precedes the other. Activation and strengthening go hand in hand and should be addressed simultaneously. I was also confused by commonly recommended hip “strengthening” exercises. At one point, I went for a gait analysis at a running clinic and left with several resistance band exercises for homework. I did those religiously for several months but they didn’t help. I now understand that was because there wasn’t enough load, and the load never progressed. Such a simple thing and surely the experts I paid knew that. Eventually I developed an overall framework for my glute training that I’ll share below. This is how I now see the big picture and how I put different exercises into context, and into action. This strategy is based on this T-Nation article, but is expanded to include other tips I’ve picked up over the years. (The T-Nation article was written by Bret Contreras. If you search Google for help with inactive glutes, you’ll undoubtedly find his website. Whether you’re interested in developing your glute muscles for athletic or aesthetic reasons, he’s “The Glute Guy”. Check out his website and YouTube channel.) Glute Training Framework This is the framework I use for my hip/glute training. It’s not a step by step plan, it’s a continuum. Each phase builds on the one before it, but you never graduate from any level. You have to continually work on all levels (except the last, which is optional because it requires exceptional conditioning and carries a higher risk of injury). Each box represents a category of hip/glute exercise. Once you understand the classification, you can evaluate any new exercise, understand how it fits into the framework, and decide if it will address your needs. The 7 levels build on one another but also synergize. For example, strength and awareness go hand in hand. There are positive feedback loops between every exercise category. You should start with the top category and progress downwards, but you don’t have to master one level before going on to the next. Personally, I’d try to get to hypertrophy and strength within a few weeks of starting. In my experience, these are the categories that generate the most noticeable improvements. Moving down the continuum is as much about skill development as it is about activating and strengthening your glutes. You may think that exercises like squatting and bridging are basic, but they are actually quite nuanced. Regular practice of fundamental movements like these do a great deal to improve your overall body awareness and coordination. Always focus on high quality movement. How often to train The first 4 exercise categories (Hip Mobility to Glute Activation) should be addressed every day. Obviously no one has time for everything, so mix it up. You can probably do a small variety of exercises in these categories throughout your day. For example, most of these exercises are well suited to watching Netflix in the evening. The importance of the next 2 stages, hypertrophy (building muscle) and strength, was never explained to me by any of the professionals I consulted, except the strength trainer. If I had understood these two stages sooner I would have progressed much faster. Depending on the intensity, you could do glute hypertrophy and strength training 2-3 times per week. Always do a few hip mobility and glute activation exercises for warm up prior to strengthening work. The final stage, speed-power, isn’t something I feel comfortable advising you on. Once you are dealing with explosive movements the risk of injury escalates, especially for older athletes. If you want to train for speed and power (sprinting), refer to the advice in the T-nation article, but do additional research as well. Explanations and examples Click on the tabs for an explanation of the 7 exercise categories in my Glute Training Framework: All hip stretches fall into this category. Yoga is an obvious choice, but plain old static stretching works too. Refer to the anatomical terms of movement for the hips to make sure you don’t neglect any of the key ranges of movement. Stretch daily, especially your hip flexors. Here’s a sample routine: Feeling your glutes at work One of my biggest frustrations was that I didn’t know how I should feel my glutes working during real-life. I believed that until I started using them in every day activities, they wouldn’t get stronger, but I couldn’t connect them to any of my real life, everyday movements. Take glute bridge, for example. It’s pretty weird to lay on your back and lift your hips in the air. And it’s pretty difficult to see how that relates to something like, say, hiking up a steep mountain. Here’s how I wish it had been explained to me: As your glute muscles get stronger it will be easier to feel them working for you in different situations. Exercises that put your hips into end range extension and hyperextension work really well for getting your glutes to contract strongly, which is why the glute bridge is so good. It doesn’t mean that your glutes won’t work in other movements. It just means this is a good way to challenge them, building awareness and strength. Continually strive to feel your glutes working in different basic movements, like step ups. One helpful cue it to drive your bodyweight through your heels to help get them firing. For me, skate skiing is terrific for feeling my glutes at work in a real-life, out of the gym situation. So perhaps this is the summer you start roller skiing… Summary As you can probably guess, I really wanted to use the tabbed table feature that comes with our new website theme. Of course, I also wanted to give you a framework for understanding how different types of glute/hip exercises can fit into an overall strategy for success. A lot of what I call glute activation exercises are commonly billed as glute strengthening exercises. (Search something like “hip strengthening for runners” to see what I mean.) Heck, I’ve even seen hip stretches listed as exercises that will strengthen and “tone” your glutes. Don’t get me wrong – these exercises have value and fit into the framework, but they aren’t great for getting significantly stronger, at least for anyone who is athletic-ish. I categorize them as activation exercises to remind you that muscles need to be loaded to get stronger. Glutes are large muscles and can handle load. In fact, load helps you learn to activate your glutes by making it easier to feel them working. Let me know if you found this framework useful. I hope it saves you some of the struggles I went through learning how to better activate and strengthen my glutes. Please share your glute stories and favourite exercises in the comments section. And, if you found this useful, please use the Facebook and Twitter buttons below to share it with others. Original article and pictures take http://crosscountryskitechnique.com/guide-glute-training/ site
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий