Bottom muscles! A.K.A the glutes. What’s the big deal anyway! So recently in one of my sessions, my client asked me a good question why do we need bottoms?! Well, the main obvious reason is we need them to walk!
To begin let me explain the structure of the booty; there are different sections to the glutes; three to be exact:
gluteus maximus
gluteus medius
gluteus minimus
All of these muscles work hard and are responsible for hip extension (opening and lengthening the front of your hip), internal rotation, (twisting inward movement of the thigh form hip joint) and abduction of the hip (movement of the hip away from the midline of the body).
The glute medius and minimus work together to promote hip abduction and prevent hip adduction (movement of the hip towards the midline of the body)..These muscle in particular help us to balance on one leg.
Glute maximus, the king of the bottom, is the primary hip extensor muscle, and also the biggest of the three gluteal muscles.
Strong glutes are important for proper pelvic alignment, power and force during running, and single limb stance support. Strong glutes also help to support the lower back during lifting motions, and prevent knee injuries during lifting and running exercises. Having strong glutes is fundamental to properly executing many lower body exercises like deadlifts, squats, and even walking.
3 Reasons Strong Glutes are Important:
1. Reduce Back Pain:
Your glutes are responsible for hip extension, and also its reverse action. When the feet are fixed on the ground, the motion your glutes assist with is raising the chest up from the ground, like as in a deadlift. Therefore, strong glutes are essential to lower back health, since they assist with pelvic and trunk motions as well. When your glutes are strong, you have a stable pelvis and better support for your lower back, so any load can be more evenly distributed through the lower back and lower extremities. A sign of weak glutes is rounding of the back during a deadlift.
2. Reduce Knee Pain:
Your gluteal muscles create pelvic stability. This is important because your lower extremities function in a closed chain. This means that if something goes wrong at the ankle, it can cause imbalances at the knee and further up the leg at the hip. The same can occur if an instability arises at the hip, it can lead to excess forces on the knee and ankle. This can lead to knee discomfort or pain. Instability at the hip can cause excessive medial rotation of the femur, which in turn creates lateral patellar tracking. Lateral patellar tracking (or kneecap shifts out of place as the leg straightens or bends). This can be a common source of knee pain along with other knee issues.
3. Increase Power & Athletic Performance:
We already discussed the importance of strong glutes in athletic exercises like deadlifts, and that it can assist in forward force during running (by creating explosive hip extension). Therefore, it is obvious that the glutes are essential to many athletic pursuits: acceleration, jumping, and even heavy lifting. It goes without saying that the glute maximus is one of the largest and strongest muscles in the body, therefore it has a lot of influence over the explosive nature of an athlete’s performance. If you let your glutes get weak, you may find yourself less powerful, and efficient as some of your competitors.
Here are some great exercises for a healthy perky bottom:
Hip thrust
Single leg hip thrust
Back squats
Banded Romanian deadlifts
Rear foot elevated split squats
Curtsey lunges
Cable glute kickbacks
Lateral lunges
Reverse lunge
Step downs
Of course that is just a few, there are lot more, however just master the basic moves with a few isolation exercises to get you going!
Happy glute building :)
F x