THAT COVETED INSTA BOOTY : While having a lifted, well-toned rear end looks great, the benefits go much deeper than just appearance. Your backside consists of three major muscles: the glute maximum, glute medius, and glute minimus. This important group of muscles extends the hip (pulls the thigh behind you), abducts the hip (your lateral movement to the side), and does internal and external rotation of hip. They work in conjunction with the hamstrings (the three muscles at the back of our upper leg) to help us walk, run, kick and climb.
They’re incredibly important, but they’re often weak and underworked.
Many of us to have chronically tight and weak glutes due to excessive sitting and living a sedentary lifestyle. Prolonged sitting from driving in the car, hanging out on a couch, sitting at work, etc. have led gluteus muscles to become more dormant than they should be. Our glutes have become weak and “switched off” because an over-reliance on other muscles during everyday movement that should be performed by the glutes. Many of us tend to have overdeveloped quads and underdeveloped glutes with tight hip flexor muscles. In fact, the common condition when gluteus muscles are weak and hip flexors are tight is called a “dormant butt syndrome” and it can cause knee, hip, and back pain.
INSTAPHYSIQUE TO THE RESCUE!
You might be concerned about sculpting a strong booty to fill out your favorite pair of jeans, but there’s so much more to a tight tush than the way your pants fit!
Wonder why we focus so much on our glutes and our legs? Leg workouts engage the largest muscle groups of your body, which helps to burn more calories, improve overall athletic performance, and support healthy movement patterns in your daily life. Want a “6 pack”? Work on strengthening your glutes! This work keeps the body looking balanced and sculpted, but beyond that having strong glutes is an integral part of your body’s overall health. Powerful glutes play a key role in how efficiently your body moves, and helps to limit the amount of stress put on your lower back.
Once our glutes stop firing, our hip flexors (the muscles that pull the thigh forward) get tight and can lead to injury. When you build a stronger booty, here are a few of the benefits you can expect.
IMPROVED POSTURE
Having weak or underdeveloped glutes can have detrimental effects on your posture, as they are part of your body’s stabilization system. When your glutes aren’t strong, your latissimus dorsi overcompensates, pulling the torso and shoulders out of their proper position. If your hip flexors are stronger than your glutes, they can pull your pelvis into an unnatural alignment. This can cause both poor posture and pain.
INJURY PREVENTION
Glutes that aren’t preforming properly increase the risk of injury to the knees, lower back, hamstrings, and groin. Therefore, strengthening these muscles is extremely important when trying to protect your body from injuries.
BYE-BYE BACK PAIN
The glutes play a major role in relieving some of the stress and pressure from your lower back. Your glutes work to stabilize the pelvis and keep integrity of movement in the hip joint. When they’re strong, your lower back doesn’t bear the full force of your motion.
PREVENT KNEE PAIN
Strong glute meds keep the pelvis stable from swaying side to side. When your pelvis isn’t stable, it puts a lot of pressure on your knees and ankles to compensate. When your backside is strong, it helps prevents this naturally, keeping you safe from injury.
IMPROVED ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE
Your glutes are responsible for accelerating, decelerating, changing directions, and creating explosive power in jumps. High performance sports require you to have strong glutes and hip extensors in order to achieve the best results. If you want to be a stronger athlete, it’s time to build your backside. Athletes with strong glutes will be faster and more explosive in their movements compared to those with weaker glutes.
We work our glutes to exhaustion on the Megaformer for all of these important reasons! The movements we perform in class allow your gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, AND gluteus minimus to work in new angles and positions, and to elongate.
Some of our favorite moves to increase your glute strength:
- Skating
- Any and All Lunging on the Megaformer – THE ABSOLUTE BEST – as we eccentrically load your glutes and hamstrings.
- Mega Donkey Kicks
Ready to build a strong, balanced and toned backside? Book your INSTA class today!
