Get off Your Ass and Activate Your Glutes

The buttocks (or rear end, ass, rump, badonkadonk, culo, or any of the other various nicknames for that glorious area of the human anatomy) is a much overlooked body part to train in the gym. It’s even forgotten in modern day Western civilization, as evidenced by the extraordinary fixation on the upper body (boobs on chicks and pecs/biceps/abs on dudes). This stems in part from the desire for immediate and presentable results (i.e. bench-curl monkeys, breast augmentation, liposuction, etc) and also from sexual repression in our society leading to shame and guilt associated with the areas around the pelvic girdle. These factors together create such phenomena as the ubiquitous flat-assed, top heavy females and the “bench/curl monkeys” that populate every gym in America.

Top heavy.

                                                         

This ignorance and lack of attention displayed towards the center of power and sexuality in the human body is just mind boggling to me. As someone who has always been somewhat able-bodied as well as an absolute ass-man, I’ve always found the glutes to be an important feature of both aesthetics and athletics. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy a satisfyingly bodacious bosom but it’s not so much sexual as it is simply pleasing to look at. Back in the caveman days, the abdominal, hip, and thigh regions of the female body were the best indicators of fertility and the breasts were simply milk vessels for newborns. That’s why we find breasts of wildly different shapes and sizes which aren’t very dependent on body fat (similar to noses) whereas proportional women in the healthy range of body fat percentages generally have a bit of thickness to their hips and thighs and a slight roundness to the abdomen. And men with powerful legs and large glutes were regarded as more suitable mates due to the increased likelihood that they could catch more prey or survive encounters with predators. 

Hips.

             However I digress. The sexual preferences of our ancestors are not necessarily why you’re here. You want to know why making sure you recruit your glutes will get you more gains and more pussy, right? Yes, more glute recruitment leads to bigger glutes which leads to strength gains in the gym which leads to increased thrusting power. Women like a man with a nice ass because they love thrusting power just like you probably prefer cars with a lot of horsepower. And if there are any women reading this (which I doubt) growing your ass will increase your pool of interested mates, guaranteed.

Thrusting power.

The glutes are prime movers in any variation of the squat and all forms of pulling from the floor, and they are strong stabilizers in the bench and overhead press. The problem is the majority of lifters don’t know how to actively bring them into play – they don’t have the mind-muscle connection – which is important for optimal gains in both strength and hypertrophy. The best way to describe how the glutes are recruited is to basically think of sticking your butt back as the eccentric motion and thrusting forward as the concentric. This motion is necessary in order to perform all of the movements in which the glutes are prime movers as mentioned above. The average male beginner in the gym has a problem just sticking his ass out in order to sit back for good squat form. Like I said before, this is due to sexual repression which causes a sense of guilt and causes tight hip flexors (which are also caused by sitting on your ass all day, with the glutes in a stretched position and the hip flexors in a contracted position). The best way to “activate” the gluteal muscles is a combination of stretching and strengthening exercises.

Eccentric gluteal loading.

First off, the hip flexors need to be lengthened to silence the constant stream of innervation signals sent by the CNS which has become accustomed to the hips maintaining the flexed position. This can be accomplished by doing some intense stretching. The first that comes to mind is Elliot Hulse’s “bow” stretch in his “daily bio-energizer” routine. Basically, stand with feet shoulder-width apart, put your fists on your lower back/upper glutes, pinch your shoulder blades together, and stick your pelvis forward with a slight bend at the knee so that the front of your body is shaped like a bow. Hold this for about a minute, breathing deeply into your belly. This will open up all of the tightness in the upper quads, anterior hips, and abdomen. The second stretch I would do is called the “couch stretch” courtesy of the sanfrancisco crossfit youtube channel. In this one you put your leg back behind you on a couch (or chair or even on the floor against a wall) with your foot up in the air and your knee resting on the seat of the chair or on the floor. Then you push your hips forward (while keeping your spine in a neutral position) and hold that for a while. 2-3 minutes per leg is good but you can go as long as 5 minutes if you’ve got nothing better to do.

This would be perfect if she went into full extension...

The next step is to train your CNS to actively innervate your gluteus. For this you’ll be doing a lot of “womanly” exercises like getting on your hands and knees and lifting a leg up behind you. This hip extension can really only be done with the glutes from the position you’re in. You can also attach a cable to your ankle and kick your leg back behind you while keeping it straight. And lastly, you can do the hip abductor (seated leg spread) machine because the glutes are the prime movers in that plane of motion as well. Once you learn to feel your glutes contracting and are able to contract them at will like you probably can do with your pectorals, try to give them a dominant role in your squats and deadlifts and actively contract them during all of your press motions for optimal stabilization. After a few weeks of practice, it should become second nature and within a few months you’ll start to notice superb gains in the strength and size of your glutes.

Then you learn to do this.

The power of the hip thrust is one that gives life…and takes life away...especially if you let a horse fuck you in the ass.



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