What's up, guys? Here is Pritam. Kicking off a new series here today. We’re talking about Red Flags. Today we’re covering five red flags that your glutes are pretty weak. As a matter of fact, damn weak, and you need to do something about it. Guys, one by one I’m going to knock outfive things that you should be able to do if you have adequate strength in your glutes. If you do not, then you need to do something about it.
First off, you might be asking yourself “Why should I even care?” Besides the fact that most of us would probably like to look good from behind, I’m telling you that the glutes are designed to be the most powerful muscles in your entire body. Ironically, they tend to be the weakest because we don’t train them effectively. Squats, deadlifts; they’re not doing enough,guys. It’s a single plane motion working the sagittal plane and our glutes are three dimensional and work in all three planes. We need to make sure we’re addressing the mindividually. If you don’t, you’re going to have bad posture. You could have anterior pelvic tilt.You could have a weakness in your big lifts. You’re not lifting as much, nearly as much as you could on your deadlift and squat because of a weakness in your glutes. You’re not getting as much power, or speed if you’re athlete.
Everything comes down to the power house of your entire body, your center of mass, and it’s all centered right around your pelvis, and you need to focus on this. So, let’s get going. So, let’s look for that first red flag here. It’s really simple to do. You get down on the floor, no equipment required. You come down to the ground, hands and knees. This is a two-part sequence here. You’re not out of the woods if you can do the first one. What you want to do is get your leg back behind you, start with either one, and you want your knee straight. You don’t want to cheat it and roll the pelvis out. You want to try and keep that parallel tothe floor.
From here you’re going to squeeze your leg-up toward the ceiling by activating the glute. Hopefully. So that means you should be able to feel this intense contraction right here in this cheek. If you don’t, I’m already starting toget a little concerned because we need to know that you have that mind-muscle control over the glute. These small motions are what will reveal whether you do or not. But let’s say you do there. You’re not out of the woods. What you need to do now is bend the knee and repeat the same procedures because by bending the knee here, we’re shortening the hamstring.
We’re contracting the hamstring a littlebit. Meaning, we’re taking its contribution out of the equation. The hamstring is capable of extending the hip as well as flexing the knee.
So, when we have this here, now when we tryto lift up toward the ceiling, can you still do that?
And can you still feel any contraction inthe glute? A lot of us will find that we lose that ability.
We don’t feel it squeezing anymore. We don’t feel that cramping in here. That means your hamstrings were doing moreof the work and the glutes aren’t as strong as you think they are. Which means they’re going to need work. You want to make sure you test this on bothsides because there can always be discrepancies. As a matter of fact, it’s a common occurrence to have a discrepancy in your strength from right side to left. Our next red flag here just requires a couple of dumbbells and an exercise you’ve probably done a whole lot of reps on. That’s the lunge. Now, take whatever you’d use on a 12 to 15 rep lunge. I just have 25 lbs in each hand here.
Remember, when you lunge out you’re not just trying to see whether you can get out here and then come back up to the top. You want to be able to do that with stability through your pelvis. Meaning, you don’t want a lot of shakiness, or wobbling through the pelvis because you want to know that your glutes are doing their job. Remember, the muscles of the glutes are not single plane. I said that in the beginning. They actually control motion in all three planes. In this case, we’re looking for their ability to control the frontal plane. So, you take whatever that weight is – 25 lbs in each hand – combine it for 50lbs, now take a 50 lb dumbbell, and here’s the test.
You hold it on one side only. So, I have it on my left side. I’m going to step out with the opposite leg. As I step out here, the opposite leg down. What I’m looking for is that same stability. I’ve got a lot of weight over here that’s probably going to make this hip kick out if the glutes are weak on this side. So, you want to make sure you can get outhere with that double weight straight down, and straight back, nice and controlled, forabout three to four reps. And back, nice and controlled. You’re not looking – you want to makesure you’re not doing that. Fall into that side and let that hip kickout on you.
Remember, test both sides here again. Number three is another one we can do downhere on the ground, no equipment at all. Again, red flag. You’ve got make sure that we at least reveal these, so we know what we’re dealing with. I want you to get down on your ground, geton your back, and we’re going to form a bridge. When you do the bridge with both feet on the ground and lift your hips up as high as you can. Now, a lot of people will short change theb ridge. They stop here. That’s not full hip extension. To get the full hip extension you’ve got to lift until you’ve basically drawn a straight line between your quads and your torso. If you’re going to roll something it willroll right down. It’s not going to get caught in the middle here.
Some people, right there, are going to already start to feel cramping. It’s where you feel the cramping that’sone of the biggest problems. If you’re cramping in the hamstrings atall you’re in trouble. It’s going to get worse because what I want you to do is to, in this position, test the right side. You’re going to get right there and lift the left leg off the ground.
Two things you’re looking for. If I lift the left leg off the ground do Iimmediately start to drop here? Do I start to sag?
If you do it’s because you don’t havestrong enough glutes on this side. We should all be able to perform a singleleg bridge with our own bodyweight. But if you start to drop that’s sign numberone.
Number two: You’ll also start to rotate. Same deal. Weakness in the glute. But more importantly, when you get in that position here and you lift, if you can even stay up but you start getting cramping inthis hamstring, then you have assigned here that your glutes are weak. Why? Because your glutes are what should be drivinghip extension. Not your hamstrings. Although, they are capable of contributing to hip extension, that’s not their main focus. So, if they start cramping that means they’retrying to do as much of the work as possible because the glutes don’t want to do the work. That’s a great sign that says “Hey! Wake up, you lazy ass (literally) and start doing some of the work, and don’t make me – the hamstrings – do everything that you’re supposed to be doing.” It’s a great sign, guys. Remember, test both sides, right and leftto find out where you stand.
Number three, and this is one of the big, red flags that’s going to remind you every, single day that there’s something wrong. The thing is, you usually don’t understand that the source is your glutes, once again. That is low back pain. In this case, I like to call it ‘pseudo low back pain’. This is what we’re talking about. This area right here – I’m going to geta little naughty here – but we’ve got, basically, if I were to rub my hand over the upper portion of my glutes I would feel a bone right here. It’s in my pelvis. If you can just roll your fingers just tothe outside of that bone – so roll it over until it sits on the outside.
Right in here, if you have pain right in that spot, and when you press it, it can radiate around, down your leg a little bit, up into your low back, and starts to feel like “Wow, that is exactly – I can pin point where thatis”, then my friend; you’ve got some issues with your glute medias. Likely, it’s really, really weak. That’s what’s causing your pain. What you need to do is watch the video I justshowed you because I’m going to show you in there exactly how to treat that.
But for now, the presence of this pain alone in this pinpointed spot – either on the right side or left – is enough to tell methat I know where the source of your issues lie. It is your glute medias, and it’s weak,and you need to fix it. That video will help you to do that. Our fifth and final red flag is an ab exercise. Again, you guys have got to see this by now,that all these muscles are connected.
Especially if they have common attachments to the pelvis. Of course, one is going to influence the other. We know that the abs are controlling the pelvisand the glutes as well.
So why are they not impacting each other?
This is the thing, we’re going to jump toone of the hardest exercises there are when it comes to the abs. That’s the dragonfly. But don’t worry. You might not be able to do the dragonfly, but even if you can do some version of it, you’re going to see that it’s probably your glutes causing the problem, less than your overall ab strength. So, we get in this position, you grab onto something you can anchor your upper body to, and then you go in and start to do your dragonfly. Which is going to be this. Up here, and then drop it down.
Right, under control. So now, where is the weakness? I’m going to tell you that your abs area hell of a lot stronger than you think they are. The problem is your glutes. If you can’t perform this exercise, do this instead. See how strong your glutes really are by focusingon how much they’re activated during that exercise. So, when I come out, what’s happening is,people’s hips are dropping here. So, the abs have to take on a lot more ofthe work because the hips and glutes are not contracted. If instead I squeeze into extension, all ofa sudden, my abs become a lot stronger here to be able to hold that position. If you can’t start there, it’s the same principle applied at a higher angle. So instead of having my legs out, beginnerscan be up here and see how much they can hold with their abs. Remember, I have sunken hips here. What I have to do is squeeze into full extension and stay there. So, you’re testing your ability.
If you just can’t get your hips up and youcan’t keep them up, you don’t have enough hip extension strength, and that’s just against the force of gravity. Imagine what happens when you actually startto apply weighted exercises where they need to be like that, or you try to get into a barbell hip thrust and you don’t have nearly the strength in your glutes to do them properly. Guys, there are a lot of red flags when it comes to a lot of different muscles groups that you have, but none probably more overlooked than your glutes. They’re geared to be powerhouses. They’re probably not doing anywhere near the full capacity of what they’re capable of for you, and that’s a problem. We need to fix it.
I hope this article helpful for you. All right, guys. See you soon.
First off, you might be asking yourself “Why should I even care?” Besides the fact that most of us would probably like to look good from behind, I’m telling you that the glutes are designed to be the most powerful muscles in your entire body. Ironically, they tend to be the weakest because we don’t train them effectively. Squats, deadlifts; they’re not doing enough,guys. It’s a single plane motion working the sagittal plane and our glutes are three dimensional and work in all three planes. We need to make sure we’re addressing the mindividually. If you don’t, you’re going to have bad posture. You could have anterior pelvic tilt.You could have a weakness in your big lifts. You’re not lifting as much, nearly as much as you could on your deadlift and squat because of a weakness in your glutes. You’re not getting as much power, or speed if you’re athlete.
Everything comes down to the power house of your entire body, your center of mass, and it’s all centered right around your pelvis, and you need to focus on this. So, let’s get going. So, let’s look for that first red flag here. It’s really simple to do. You get down on the floor, no equipment required. You come down to the ground, hands and knees. This is a two-part sequence here. You’re not out of the woods if you can do the first one. What you want to do is get your leg back behind you, start with either one, and you want your knee straight. You don’t want to cheat it and roll the pelvis out. You want to try and keep that parallel tothe floor.
From here you’re going to squeeze your leg-up toward the ceiling by activating the glute. Hopefully. So that means you should be able to feel this intense contraction right here in this cheek. If you don’t, I’m already starting toget a little concerned because we need to know that you have that mind-muscle control over the glute. These small motions are what will reveal whether you do or not. But let’s say you do there. You’re not out of the woods. What you need to do now is bend the knee and repeat the same procedures because by bending the knee here, we’re shortening the hamstring.
We’re contracting the hamstring a littlebit. Meaning, we’re taking its contribution out of the equation. The hamstring is capable of extending the hip as well as flexing the knee.
So, when we have this here, now when we tryto lift up toward the ceiling, can you still do that?
And can you still feel any contraction inthe glute? A lot of us will find that we lose that ability.
We don’t feel it squeezing anymore. We don’t feel that cramping in here. That means your hamstrings were doing moreof the work and the glutes aren’t as strong as you think they are. Which means they’re going to need work. You want to make sure you test this on bothsides because there can always be discrepancies. As a matter of fact, it’s a common occurrence to have a discrepancy in your strength from right side to left. Our next red flag here just requires a couple of dumbbells and an exercise you’ve probably done a whole lot of reps on. That’s the lunge. Now, take whatever you’d use on a 12 to 15 rep lunge. I just have 25 lbs in each hand here.
Remember, when you lunge out you’re not just trying to see whether you can get out here and then come back up to the top. You want to be able to do that with stability through your pelvis. Meaning, you don’t want a lot of shakiness, or wobbling through the pelvis because you want to know that your glutes are doing their job. Remember, the muscles of the glutes are not single plane. I said that in the beginning. They actually control motion in all three planes. In this case, we’re looking for their ability to control the frontal plane. So, you take whatever that weight is – 25 lbs in each hand – combine it for 50lbs, now take a 50 lb dumbbell, and here’s the test.
You hold it on one side only. So, I have it on my left side. I’m going to step out with the opposite leg. As I step out here, the opposite leg down. What I’m looking for is that same stability. I’ve got a lot of weight over here that’s probably going to make this hip kick out if the glutes are weak on this side. So, you want to make sure you can get outhere with that double weight straight down, and straight back, nice and controlled, forabout three to four reps. And back, nice and controlled. You’re not looking – you want to makesure you’re not doing that. Fall into that side and let that hip kickout on you.
Remember, test both sides here again. Number three is another one we can do downhere on the ground, no equipment at all. Again, red flag. You’ve got make sure that we at least reveal these, so we know what we’re dealing with. I want you to get down on your ground, geton your back, and we’re going to form a bridge. When you do the bridge with both feet on the ground and lift your hips up as high as you can. Now, a lot of people will short change theb ridge. They stop here. That’s not full hip extension. To get the full hip extension you’ve got to lift until you’ve basically drawn a straight line between your quads and your torso. If you’re going to roll something it willroll right down. It’s not going to get caught in the middle here.
Some people, right there, are going to already start to feel cramping. It’s where you feel the cramping that’sone of the biggest problems. If you’re cramping in the hamstrings atall you’re in trouble. It’s going to get worse because what I want you to do is to, in this position, test the right side. You’re going to get right there and lift the left leg off the ground.
Two things you’re looking for. If I lift the left leg off the ground do Iimmediately start to drop here? Do I start to sag?
If you do it’s because you don’t havestrong enough glutes on this side. We should all be able to perform a singleleg bridge with our own bodyweight. But if you start to drop that’s sign numberone.
Number two: You’ll also start to rotate. Same deal. Weakness in the glute. But more importantly, when you get in that position here and you lift, if you can even stay up but you start getting cramping inthis hamstring, then you have assigned here that your glutes are weak. Why? Because your glutes are what should be drivinghip extension. Not your hamstrings. Although, they are capable of contributing to hip extension, that’s not their main focus. So, if they start cramping that means they’retrying to do as much of the work as possible because the glutes don’t want to do the work. That’s a great sign that says “Hey! Wake up, you lazy ass (literally) and start doing some of the work, and don’t make me – the hamstrings – do everything that you’re supposed to be doing.” It’s a great sign, guys. Remember, test both sides, right and leftto find out where you stand.
Number three, and this is one of the big, red flags that’s going to remind you every, single day that there’s something wrong. The thing is, you usually don’t understand that the source is your glutes, once again. That is low back pain. In this case, I like to call it ‘pseudo low back pain’. This is what we’re talking about. This area right here – I’m going to geta little naughty here – but we’ve got, basically, if I were to rub my hand over the upper portion of my glutes I would feel a bone right here. It’s in my pelvis. If you can just roll your fingers just tothe outside of that bone – so roll it over until it sits on the outside.
Right in here, if you have pain right in that spot, and when you press it, it can radiate around, down your leg a little bit, up into your low back, and starts to feel like “Wow, that is exactly – I can pin point where thatis”, then my friend; you’ve got some issues with your glute medias. Likely, it’s really, really weak. That’s what’s causing your pain. What you need to do is watch the video I justshowed you because I’m going to show you in there exactly how to treat that.
But for now, the presence of this pain alone in this pinpointed spot – either on the right side or left – is enough to tell methat I know where the source of your issues lie. It is your glute medias, and it’s weak,and you need to fix it. That video will help you to do that. Our fifth and final red flag is an ab exercise. Again, you guys have got to see this by now,that all these muscles are connected.
Especially if they have common attachments to the pelvis. Of course, one is going to influence the other. We know that the abs are controlling the pelvisand the glutes as well.
So why are they not impacting each other?
This is the thing, we’re going to jump toone of the hardest exercises there are when it comes to the abs. That’s the dragonfly. But don’t worry. You might not be able to do the dragonfly, but even if you can do some version of it, you’re going to see that it’s probably your glutes causing the problem, less than your overall ab strength. So, we get in this position, you grab onto something you can anchor your upper body to, and then you go in and start to do your dragonfly. Which is going to be this. Up here, and then drop it down.
Right, under control. So now, where is the weakness? I’m going to tell you that your abs area hell of a lot stronger than you think they are. The problem is your glutes. If you can’t perform this exercise, do this instead. See how strong your glutes really are by focusingon how much they’re activated during that exercise. So, when I come out, what’s happening is,people’s hips are dropping here. So, the abs have to take on a lot more ofthe work because the hips and glutes are not contracted. If instead I squeeze into extension, all ofa sudden, my abs become a lot stronger here to be able to hold that position. If you can’t start there, it’s the same principle applied at a higher angle. So instead of having my legs out, beginnerscan be up here and see how much they can hold with their abs. Remember, I have sunken hips here. What I have to do is squeeze into full extension and stay there. So, you’re testing your ability.
If you just can’t get your hips up and youcan’t keep them up, you don’t have enough hip extension strength, and that’s just against the force of gravity. Imagine what happens when you actually startto apply weighted exercises where they need to be like that, or you try to get into a barbell hip thrust and you don’t have nearly the strength in your glutes to do them properly. Guys, there are a lot of red flags when it comes to a lot of different muscles groups that you have, but none probably more overlooked than your glutes. They’re geared to be powerhouses. They’re probably not doing anywhere near the full capacity of what they’re capable of for you, and that’s a problem. We need to fix it.
I hope this article helpful for you. All right, guys. See you soon.
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