Butts Are Important
Seriously, you need glutes.
Functioning glutes.
Glutes that actually make you Instagram famous keep your knees from being torn to pieces from collapsing inward.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, the glutes may be the most important muscles in the body.
great vid from Athlean X
If you tell me,
“No, it’s the core”
I’ll not disagree with you.
Why?
Glutes are Core.
If the hips can’t be “set” , all the abs in the world can’t effectively brace you.
Without the glutes keeping the pelvis in a correct (usually neutral) position you’ll have to default into the lumbar spine, “dump the pelvis”, or you’ll collapse into the IT bands or whatever.
Point is, it will be pretty shitty poor, possibly injury inducing, movement.
Warmups Are Important
If you show up to the gym, grab a barbell throw some weight on it and go lift.
You’re making the workout Ivan Drago.
It Will Break You
If you tell me,
“Warmups are for pu$$ys”
I’ll tell you,
“yeah they are…”
But you still need to do them.
No one should be a warm up warrior.
However, warmups serve a valuable role in a workout.
Not only can they help prep you for the workout itself but when programmed intelligently warmup exercises can help to correct imbalances, improve movement patterns and
Bulletproof the Body
What the hell does Bulletproof mean?
To me it means,
- Bring up weak points
- Activate under-active muscles
- Strengthen often injured areas
A smart/ worthwhile warmup usually includes a few, of these exercises.
A big one I lean on heavily is the
Glute Bridge Kneeout
These should actually be called Glute Bridge Hip Outs,
Or a more technical name Glute Bridge Hip Abductions.
But then clients would be like,
“Abduct what?”
So we go with Glute Bridge Kneeouts.
Cause its a glute bridge where you press your knees out against a band.
Why So Great?
The Glute Bridge Kneeout trains the glutes in Hip Extension and External Rotation.
So, like, both the functions of the glutes….at once.
Fun Fact:
Most folks I’ve trained are not really good at achieving good, clean, hip extension at first.
Almost NO ONE is good at externally rotating their femur in the hip-joint.
Or in the words of the greatest powerlifter ever, Ed Coan,
“Open The Taint”
Just look around at all the knees collapsing on squats and deads.
The baby giraffe knees that happen on lunges.
And the turned out feet duck walk that plagues Murica’
A lot of people need some more ass.
Especially, external rotation/ taint opening, ass.
Checklist:
- Get Into a Full Glute Bridge
- Ribcage on the abs
- Glutes fully on
- Straight line shoulders through the knees
- Feet hip to shoulder width and straight ahead
- Big toe down
- Heels pressed down
- Smoothly “open” the hips/ press the knees out
- Control the eccentric motion back to the start position
- The hips should not dip/ break when pressing the knees out
Bro Tips:
- The band above the knees give YOU more leverage.
- Band below the knee gives you LESS leverage and is harder.
- If your knees are slamming into/ bouncing off of each other on each rep, you’re not controlling the eccentric, stop it and control that sh@t.
This exercise is NOT about how far you can press the knees out.
It IS about,
MAINTAINING HIP EXTENSION
and ie. not allowing the hips to drop or shift while creating any CONTROLLED external rotation at all.
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