New Year New Rear!
2 MOVES TO ACTIVATE YOUR BACKSIDE
New year, new rear!
You’ve heard of amnesia for your brain… but it’s a real thing for your butt too!
Here’s how your backside can lose its memory…
Sitting for long periods makes your hip flexors compress, causing tightness. As a result, the glutes start to decrease their ability to fire or function optimally.
As the muscles around the hips become tighter, it causes “reciprocal inhibition.” Pete McCall, a previous podcast guest and exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise, explains, “reciprocal inhibition occurs when tightness in one muscle (your hip flexors) creates length in the muscle on the opposite side of the joint (your glutes).“
When you sit for too long, the neurons that fire and signal the muscle fibers to contract can become compressed, and your glutes become neurologically inhibited, so they don’t activate when they should.
Hence, the term “glute amnesia” means your glutes forget their purpose.
As the muscle fibers become tacky, they lose their elasticity and ability to flex as they should.
If your glutes aren’t activating properly, other parts of your body start to compensate and take additional stress, which sets you up for injury.
Let’s bring your glutes back to life!
Today’s two moves are designed to activate your backside and give your glutes a wake-up call without recruiting other muscles.
GLUTE FLEX
You can do butt flexes anywhere, even while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office or while in your car. Sit up straight in your chair with your feet flat on the floor and spaced hip-width apart. Slowly tense the muscles of your buttocks together as hard as you can. Imagine you are trying to hold something between the cheeks. Hold the contraction for three seconds and then release back to the starting position.
FROG PUMP
Lay on your back with the soles of your feet together. For added intensity, rest your shoulders on a BOSU ball.
Spread your knees out
Keep your chin tucked and your ribs and shoulders down.
Keep your arms above your head so you resist using your arms for momentum
Thrust your hips toward the ceiling, squeezing your glutes as hard as possible.
30 Reps. Gradually progress your reps until you reach 50. Once you can do three sets of 50, add a dumbbell on your lap.
Rest for 1-2 minutes.
Repeat three rounds
