NO MORE WALLFLOWER GLUTES

One thing I’d like to say is that ever since I made glute and hamstring focused exercises a consistent part of my exercise routine, and temporarily eliminated exercises where my quads could too easily take over like squats and lunges, the pain and achiness in my hamstrings when I used to walk up hills went away. This is the most satisfying result in my everyday life from my exercise routine that I have experienced yet, really and truly.

The most common, standard lower body exercises that we all have done in most workouts are squats and lunges, am I right? These are indeed healthy to do, not saying they aren’t. I’m not advocating to get rid of squats and lunges. But I have been discovering something interesting. The physical therapist I work with mentioned something interesting about our glutes, and really our entire backsides. Somehow it seems our modern-day life has caused an issue where many of us have rather inactive backsides, which then causes overactive front sides. 

Our hamstrings and glutes don’t get as involved naturally with movements they SHOULD be contributing to. We can become what’s called quad dominant, where the front of our thigh muscles are doing more of the work in movements (like squats and lunges) where our glutes and hamstrings should be contributing more than they are. This ends up causing muscle imbalances. Which leads to things like I mentioned at the start which is that, even though I lifted heavyweights, and did squats, lunges, and even deadlifts ALL the time back in my Crossfit days, which supposedly should utilize and strengthen my hamstrings and glutes in addition to my quads, my hamstrings would always constantly hurt and ache when I tried to take a simple walk uphill, and it wasn’t muscle soreness from a workout. My hamstrings felt incredibly weak like they could never handle what I was trying to do, even though I was just….walking. And who knows what my glutes were or weren’t doing. They could have been sleeping for all I know! 😉 I never understood why this was occurring. But obviously, this made walks and hikes less than pleasant since it was a painful experience.

Fast forward to a hamstring tendon injury. While I’d like to say it was 100% bad because it’s been such an annoying issue to deal with, when I finally got the right help to heal it, it meant that I was doing daily hamstring and glute exercises and not squatting or lunging at all for some months. Guess what happened during that time? 

Walking uphill became an amazing pleasant endeavor! I feel like my legs are doing what they’re supposed to now! No more pain, no more achiness. I feel like I even have a spring in my step while walking UPhill, crazy right?

This has led me to believe that while squats and lunges are indeed useful since these are functional movements we do every day in our lives, thus it makes sense to train in that way, I am also beginning to feel that if the WAY our body is doing squats and lunges, whether it’s in a workout or picking up a box from the floor, is not in a muscle balanced way because of whatever modern-day life path has led us to this place, that it makes sense to do less “functional” exercises for a time like those squats & lunges, and instead do exercises that are specifically glute and hamstrings focused, where the quads can’t take over so that we can actually correct these imbalances- whether they are actual muscle strength imbalances, or even neural imbalances - brain pathways that cause us to utilize certain muscles over others because of habit or what have you, that aren’t balanced.

This forces us to retrain how our bodies use our muscles. Then when we go back to including squats and lunges, the way and which muscles fire during such a movement would hopefully be more balanced. Otherwise, it seems we will just keep perpetuating the same imbalanced movements over and over so we won’t really get anywhere and we’ll continue to experience the negative effects of this like pain, achiness, and injury.

This is one of those movements. This position can really only be achieved by the glutes and hamstrings. This isn’t a position where the quadriceps CAN take over, so we are forcing our minds and muscles to get these backside muscles back into our lives the way they should be. No more wallflower glutes. No more fly-on-the-wall hamstrings. They are going to get in there and become the life of the party along with the quads.

COMBATS AGE-RELATED GAIT CHANGES THAT COMPOUNDS AGING

The muscles on the back of the torso and legs work anytime that we are standing up. They work to hold us upright and in good postural alignment - this includes the trunk and the legs. When the gluteus maximus and hamstrings are not doing their job, it can lead to injuries of the back, hip, and knee, normal gait patterns, and posture. 

Age-related gait changes include slower walking speed and taking shorter steps. Next time you have the opportunity to watch an elderly person walk, you may notice that their leg does not extend back behind their body and they don’t move their ankles very much, they have very little push off to push their bodies forward. Healthy or “normal” walking includes the leg going behind the body and pushing off of the floor to propel the body forward. Stability ball glute bridges can help keep the hip joints moving well and work the same muscles used to pull the thigh back when you walk. 

Age-related changes in posture include a forward-leaning torso, a rounded upper back, a bend at the hips, and sometimes at the knees. This stooped posture pulls the center of gravity forward, throwing your balance off. Keeping the muscles of the back of the torso and legs well trained to hold you in an upright position can help to prevent these postural changes.