Full rear ends are a hot commodity these days; the bigger the booty, the better.
Did you know that having strong glutes does way more for you than provide curves to your backside? Here are 4 reasons to train your glutes, and train them HARD!
Improves Posture
Most Americans live a predominantly sedentary lifestyle. We spend more time sitting or lying down than we were built for and this causes our muscles to become off balance.
What do I mean by off balance? For example, if you’re sitting in a chair all day long, your hip flexor (the muscle responsible for bending you forward at the waist) is constantly flexed and becomes shorter as your body adapts to sitting. This means when you stand, you’re leaning forward more than you should (aka “duck butt” or arched lower back) and your posture is off alignment. Stronger glutes will combat this, as the glute muscle pushes your hips forward as you walk and stand.
Why do you care about posture? Posture can make you look instantly 5 lbs slimmer. Who doesn’t want a bonus 5 lbs?
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Helps Stabilize/ Create More Efficient Movement
Glutes are king of lower body movement. It is a large powerful muscle that’s there to take on much of the load of our everyday movement. If your glutes are weak, other muscles must chip in to pick up the slack and this can cause a chain of problems throughout the entire body.
Every muscle in your body has a specific job in movement and aiding movement. Efficient movement happens when every muscle is doing their job at its peak performance. The result is less pain; leaving you feeling younger, longer. It also ties into out next benefit of training glute muscles: preventing injury.
Prevents Injury
Many of the popular exercises and workout regimens (e.g., Tabata, HIIT, CrossFit, High intensity boot camps) require explosive lower body movements. When done correctly, they offer tremendous fat burning benefits and they are a ton of fun for everyone. How can you go wrong with these kinds of workouts?
By having under-developed glute muscles.
Your glutes propel you forward and provide that explosive power you need. Again, when the glutes cannot take on the demands you place on it, smaller less equipped muscles will take on the extra burden and because they are not meant to handle the extra stress, injuries are far more likely to occur. You may experience knee and lower back pain, and your body will again adapt to the knee pain, causing more injuries and those injuries will cause even worse injuries.
It is a cumulative cycle of pain, your body adapting to avoid the pain, and thus causing more pain in other areas of your body.
This scenario is less than ideal. Give your body the tools it needs to get the most out of your workout routine. Train for stronger glutes to help prevent injury.
Train them hard.
Remember, glutes are a large muscle so do away with bodyweight exercises if you are used to doing them for a while. You want to challenge them to become stronger (and bigger) and that requires adding more weight and increasing the intensity. Deadlifts, squats (if your knees can hang), and cable kickbacks are good exercises to challenge your glutes. Lift heavy (5-10 reps) and feel the burn!
Your body (and your mirror) will thank you for it.
Leah Watkins is a NASM certified personal trainer and natural figure competitor. She believes that fitness is personal and should be tailored to each person’s individual lifestyle. After embarking on her own fitness journey and losing over 70 lbs, she has made it her mission to offer simple, easy to follow tips on how to get to any fitness level you desire! Instagram: @the_leahshow.
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