Gluteus Maximus
The Gluteus Maxiumus
Now I have to admit this was one of my favorite pages to make ; ) butt, only partly for the reason you're thinking. I don't know whether it was J-Lo, Kim Kardashian, or Sir Mix-a-lot, but at some point having a big booty came into fashion. Now, I am not here to talk to you about this. My focus is always on form and function. So while there may be some admiring of form, most of the purpose of this post is to start to understand the value of the gluteus maximus, the biggest, and hopefully, the strongest set of muscles in your body.
In fact, this muscle is so big that it just might need two posts, and even more pages to talk about it and its companions, the glute medius and minimus. This group of hip extensors should be engaged and the driving force for our heaviest, lifts such as the squat and deadlift and responsible generating power in almost almost every athletic endeavor. From a sprinter coming off the blocks, to a basketball player jumping for a dunk, and a pitcher throwing a fastball, most of that force is generated at the hips with incredible hip extension from the glutes.
This group of muscles is immeasurably important in any sport/lifting event. In my younger days, I had a 36"ish vertical, and could dunk a basketball despite only being 5'8". However, when coming down for a rebound I had a catastrophic ACL/MCL/meniscus knee injury that required reconstruction and my vertical has never been the same. It was not for years later, however, when I came down with patellar tendonitis that through rehab I realized that I was not longer activating my left gluteal muscles (oh, the shame!!!). Having never been able to regain my bounce, I hadn't realized that I had lost all my power to jump and dunk not because my quads had atrophied (although they had and I worked hard to gain back the size), but because I never rehabbed my glutes back to their old form so this post hits particularly close to home with my "lazy" left gluteus maximus keeping me down.
So after realizing I had a lazy glute, I worked through the above videos to help turn it on, but why? While it is tempting to think that working out the calves and quads with squats and toe-ups will help us jump over seven footers (like Vince), it is the glutes that provide that essential hip extension when exploding off of the floor. Most of Vince Carter's power comes from coiling up like a spring with a good gather and then explosive hip extension for push-off (like in the step up gif below). Knee extension and ankle plantar flexion add a fair amount of power during push off as well, but it's that hip extension that primarily powers sprinters off of the blocks and jumpers into the air.
The gluteus maxiums, unlike many muscles, only crosses one joint, the hip. Its primary responsibility is to extend the hip (with a little hip external rotation if needed). For whatever reason this is something that we learn to avoid as we get older. Ever heard the phrase, "lift with your back"? Yeah, we tend to bend over at the waist instead of flexing the hips. Try it on yourself. Stand up from wherever you are sitting. Did you bend at the waist forward before standing? You were putting the weight all over your knees and using knee extension to stand then straightening your back. Instead, try to stand keeping your back completely vertical and driving your heels into the floor. Feel your glutes engage??? Congrats, you're half-way there.
Bottom line, we need to work on hip extension, not using our weaker back muscles or even our quads (lest we get patellar tendonitis like me) to stand up or jump up. Notice the hip extension action stepping up on that box. It's much more powerful than the leg extension of the quads or the minimal plantar flexion of the calves. If you want power in your lifts and jumps and, ok, just maybe look better in a swimsuit. you need to work out those glutes.
I have to admit most of these workouts are just aimed at the aesthetics, which is not the only point, but don't worry just activating those glutes will improve the mind-muscle connection and wake up and strengthen those glutes.
THE WORKOUT:
Seated squat
Cable kickbacks
Overhead squat on stability ball
Single leg kickback on stability ball
Squat jump over step
Shuffle over step
Split squat
Stiff-leg deadlift
Prowler push
