The Top 5 Reasons You Want Better Glutes and None of Them Have To Do With Appearance!
#1 Better Posture: Because we live in a time that the “sitting disease” is rampant, many of us suffer from poor posture due to tight, shortened hip flexors, weak over-stretched hip extensor and glutes that can’t activate when we need them to. This leads to a host of postural problems, swayback, and kyphosis-lordosis.
To compound problems, sitting for prolonged hours actually pushes the abdomen OUT, creating the illusion of a “gut” even without belly fat!
Jeff Tip: Kettlebell Goblet Squats, Swings and Deadlifts along with properly stretching out the opposing hip flexors (ex. Spiderman Lunge) helps improve posture and reduce belly ‘pooch’. This is perhaps the quickest (and easiest) way to lose 5 pounds and appear an inch or two taller!
#2 Beat Back Pain AND Knee Pain: Strong glutes support the lower back and stabilize your pelvis. When the glutes aren’t strong enough to perform what is called Hip Extension, muscles that were never intended for the job have to take over. Over time these muscles become stressed, resulting in pain and compression of the lumbar spine and hips. The Glutes also stabilize your hip. When the glutes weaken this results in poor alignment of the entire lower body, resulting in more injuries such as Achhiles tendonitis, shin splints, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) sprains and tears and IT Band syndrome.
Jeff Tip: Bulletproof Your Knees and Back by strengthening your glutes with Hip Thrusts, Single Leg RDL’s and Mini-Band Clam Shells.
#3 Improve Athletic Performance: The Glutes are the powerhouse of the body. This power is where we get our speed, acceleration and hip drive from. Every time you take a step, run or jump your glute maximus muscle shores up your pelvis and SI joint for stability. When you run, this is even more important due to the force of impact increasing exponentially on each foot strike as your glutes weaken.
Jeff Tip: Bulletproof Your Body & boost your athleticism with glute exercises along with stretching the hips/glutes with Pigeon poses, band hamstring stretches and Tactical Frogs.
#4 Turn Back The Clock and Turn On Your Bone Density: Bone density peaks in our mid-20s and soon after it begins to diminish placing us at greater risk of osteoporosis and osteopaenia. Strengthening the glutes has been shown to have a profound impact on reversing both of these. The earlier you start training your glutes the greater the potential benefits.
Jeff Tip: I joke that the first sign of aging is when the butt starts to sag. Turn back the clock with a better backside!
#5 Fat Loss Furnace: Fat loss is all about creating a caloric deficit. THE best and most effective way for this to happen is to hit up your glutes, which is the most metabolically active muscles in the body meaning that even when you are not working out, these muscles burn calories from stored fat. The biggest muscles in your body are the ones found in your glutes and hamstrings. These maximize your fat burning potential and can have a continued calories burning effect for 24-48 hours following your workout.
Jeff Tip: Nothing trains the backside like Kettlebells. Practice movements such as the swing, clean, the snatch and the goblet for a fierce after burn effect!
