6 Creative Drills for Building Strong Glutes

Male and females alike desire a strong, nice-looking backside. And there are added benefits as well—the glutes are the body’s posterior powerhouse, affecting everything from walking and jumping to sitting and standing. When we talk about training the glutes, it’s important to consider how we move in life and in sport. We want to improve our function in movement through all planes of motion and angles. Our glutes do more than extend the hips in the saggital plane, yet we seem to get stuck in performing saggital plane movements, such as a walking lunge or squat.
We also tend to focus too much on the concentric contraction of the work and allow gravity or mindlessness to do our work in the eccentric work phase. For this reason, most injuries occur during the eccentric phase of contraction. To counteract this tendency, we should focus more on the eccentric phase during many lower-body exercises.
The following drills are designed to build power and strength and increase mobility, challenging some of the many ways we move. Perform each exercise for 30-40 seconds.

DVRT Shucking

Position your feet slightly wider than hip-distance apart and perform a deadlift using a Power Ultimate Sandbag (USB). Maintain a plank position and keep your shoulders set as you hinge from the hips laterally, moving to one side with the USB hanging directly down from the shoulders; arms should be shoulder-width apart. Ideally, the USB should be over the top of the middle of your foot. The greater your hip mobility, the closer to the floor the USB will be. Drive through the foot to move the body to the other side without lifting up in the center. Make sure your hips are parallel to the floor. This exercise can help expose hip imbalances.

DVRT FL Crossing Rear Leg Dead Lift

Position your feet in a bilateral stance and perform a deadlift using a USB. Pack your shoulders and step slowly back and at an angle, crossing the midline. Shorten your stance if you cannot maintain a stable position. Slowly hinge at your hips, keeping the USB close to your leg. Focus on the eccentric part of the movement and be mindful not to round your back or shoulders. Drive off of the front heel, maintaining contact with the rear ball of the foot, and powerfully drive the body back to a standing position.

Hip/Back Extensions

Position yourself on a glute/ham machine so that the pad is right below the hips. Press your feet strongly into the footplate and slowly lower your torso toward the ground. Pay close attention to the eccentric contraction. Squeeze your glutes together while pressing the feet into the footplate and raise to a full extension; avoid hyperextending the back. Hold for a beat and then slowly lower again. Make sure your back can stay in a plank position throughout the full movement; don’t allow any rounding of the low back.

TRX Lunge With Hip Hinge

Adjust the TRX Suspension Trainer to mid-calf and stand facing away with one foot in the foot cradles, toes pressing toward the floor. Keep the torso strongly engaged and begin to lower the body, allowing the hip hinge to drive the movement down and back. As you lower toward the floor, the leg in the foot cradle will follow the lead of the hip hinge and begin to extend behind you. Your degree of hip mobility will determine the depth of your hinge. Don’t allow your back to round.

McGill Airplane

Stand on one leg with hips parallel to the floor; lock the rib cage onto the pelvis to create a brace in your core. Keep the pelvis on the supporting leg flexed and begin to externally rotate the extended leg, directing the hip up. Internally rotate the hip back to the starting position. This drill works the gluteus maximus through its full range of motion, under load and with control; balance is challenged as well.

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Toning Workouts for Women - What are some of the Most Effective Workouts

There are currently tons of toning workouts for women out there that have been created for women who wanted to have a sexy body. 

 

 Due to the increasing demands for toning workouts for women, there are a lot of programs that have been created specifically for those women who wanted to have a sexy body. But not all of the available toning workouts for women can guarantee fast results. 

 

People who are searching for the best toning workouts for women have different reasons why they wanted to get into such programs. The main reasons why most women wanted to perform these exercises is either they just want to live a little bit healthier or they want to lose weight and improve the overlook of their bodies. 

 

Toning workouts for women are not designed to develop big muscles, what it does is firm a woman’s muscle to make her look healthy, strong and beautiful. There a many types of toning workouts for women that can guarantee good and fast results which helps improve her body. To make the workouts more effective, it should be combined with a healthy diet.

Among these effective toning workouts for women that have been proven to be effective are yoga, pilates and aerobic. 

Yoga, which is one of the sought after toning workouts for women, performs gentle exercises that stretches, exercises, tones and flexes a woman’s body muscles. This kind of exercises is tiring but it allows the muscles to relax and get toned as well as increasing the flexibility of a woman’s body. 

 

Another good toning exercise is pilates, which focuses on controlling a woman’s body muscles. This kind of exercise is also recommended for pregnant women to help them in giving birth and consciously trains them in moving their muscles and tones them easily. Attaining flexibility is among the goals of such exercise because it helps a woman to properly move her body to become flexible. 

All toning workouts that are specifically designed for women requires a woman to have a proper alignment and centering, which makes pilates exercises to be very helpful as it promotes these proper postures and teaches a woman to center her body and provide a better core for her body movements. It will also help women to move from one position to another by controlling their muscles. It also helps a woman’s overall concentration because it encourages them to concentrate while performing the routines aerobic is also an effective workout for women as it is a good way of losing weight and helps women to have their muscles easily get toned. Such exercise includes energetic music that will encourage women to follow its faced paced workout routines. 

Choosing one of these great toning workouts for women and combining it with healthy diet will guarantee you of having a sexy body in no time. 

Sitting at a Computer All Day? These 4 Stretches Will Help!

 

Ever since I quit my nursing job and started working from home, I went from standing for 8+ hours at a time to virtually sitting… all day long. I noticed that my flexibility went from high to none-fast! Also, my lower back started hurting which was strange because never ever did I have back pain in my entire life!

It wasn’t until I began a yoga class that I learned that tight glutes and tight hips can lead to back pain by pulling those muscles out of alignment. Tight hips and glutes can also lead to a tummy pooch by forcing your lower back to arch itself.

Sounds lovely, right?

These 4 stretches have helped me tremendously and I would recommend them for anyone who has a desk job or who happens to sit for long periods of time. I do these 4 moves every morning and every night. At first, it was a bit painful, but now my flexibility has improved and my back pain has virtually disappeared.

Here are 4 stretches to undo sitting all day:

1. Lizard Pose

From Downward Facing Dog Pose, step your right foot forwards between your hands. Heel-toe your foot towards the edge of your mat, so that your foot is slightly wider than your shoulders.

Let your hips grow heavy, so that they settle forwards and down. Begin to walk your hands forwards until you are able to come down on to your forearms. You may place your forearms on the ground, or on a block.

Extend your heart forward, lengthening the spine. Try to soften the heart and draw the shoulder blades together, taking the rounding out of your back.

Keep your right knee hugging towards your midline to get into the inner hip and thigh area of your right leg. You can keep your left knee lifted with your leg active, or for a more restorative version, you can lower your left knee.

2. Happy Baby Pose

Lie on your back. With an exhale, bend your knees into your belly.

Inhale, grip the outsides of your feet with your hands (if you have difficulty holding the feet directly with your hands, hold onto a belt looped over each sole.)

Open your knees slightly wider than your torso, then bring them up toward your armpits.

Position each ankle directly over the knee, so your shins are perpendicular to the floor. Flex through the heels. Gently push your feet up into your hands (or the belts) as you pull your hands down to create a resistance.

3. Pigeon Pose

Begin in Downward-Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana), or on your hands and knees in Table Pose.

Bring your right knee between your hands, placing your right ankle near your left wrist. Extend your left leg behind you so your kneecap and the top of your foot rest on the floor.

Press through your fingertips as you lift your torso away from your thigh. Lengthen the front of your body. Release your tailbone back toward your heels. Work on squaring your hips and the front side of your torso to the front of your mat.

Draw down through your front-leg shin and balance your weight evenly between your right and left hips. Flex your front foot. Press down through the tops of all five toes of the back foot.

Gaze downward softly.

Hold for up to one minute. To release the pose, tuck your back toes, lift your back knee off the mat, and then press yourself back into Downward-Facing Dog. Repeat for the same amount of time on the other side.

4. Plow Pose

Begin by lying flat on your back with your legs extended and your arms at your sides, palms down.

On an inhalation, use your abdominal muscles to lift your legs and hips up toward the ceiling. Bring your torso perpendicular to the floor. Straighten your legs and slowly lower your toes to the floor with your legs fully extended.

If your toes do not yet touch the floor, support your back with your hands. Lower your legs as far as possible, keeping your legs straight. Continue to keep your back supported if your feet do not touch the floor.

If your feet rest comfortably, extend your arms along the floor and interlace your fingers. Press your upper arms firmly into the floor, drawing down through the pinkie finger side of your hands.

Align your hips over your shoulders. Un-tuck your toes and press the tops of your feet into the floor.

Lift your tailbone higher, and draw your inner groin deep into your pelvis. Keep a space between your chin and chest, and at the same time, lift your chest to open the upper back. Soften your throat. Gaze down toward your cheeks.

Hold the pose for up to five minutes.

To release, support your back with your hands. Then, slowly roll down, one vertebra at a time, bending your knees if you need to.

Image: Yogaoutlet.com

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