A single weak link in your body can have dramatic effects on everything else you do. Even a poorly placed papercut can mess with your trigger, or gaming, finger. Imagine what could happen if your largest muscle group is weak and underdeveloped.
I’ll give you an idea. With weak glutes, you’ll struggle to walk, run, sit, lift, bend, and kick properly. Weak glutes, aka flabby or nonexistent asscheeks, could be the culprit for your poor performance and nonspecific pain. Why do we let our butts lag behind the rest of our body?
Simple: we can’t see them.
If a bear sh*ts in the woods and no one is there to smell it–did it really sh*t?
Some glute work on ship.
(Photo by: Petty Officer 3rd Class John McGovern)
If you go to the one club that is on the restricted liberty list, but no one is there to catch you–did you break any rules?
If you never train legs, and only take ab and bicep selfies–are there even muscles on the backs of your legs?
Despite the lack of evidence in your Instagram history, here are a few indications that your glutes are weak and underdeveloped.
You have knee, hip, or low back pain
Your body functions as a singular unit. When you walk, your glutes are supposed to stabilize your hips so that they remain level even when one leg is off the ground. If your glutes don’t stabilize, you could experience pain. You can see a good example of how a weak butt causes knees to collapse in over time in anyone with knock-knees.
Issues can become increasingly exaggerated if you are more front (quad) dominant as well as having weak glutes. Think of your body like a scale: if your anterior (front side) muscles “outweigh” your posterior (back side) muscles, the imbalance will result in some type of pain, often in the lower back, hips, or knees.
Any imbalances will have the spotlight put on them when deadlifting 2x your body weight
(Photo by Alora Griffiths on Unsplash)
Further down the chain from your knees are your feet and ankles. A quick sign to see if you might have weak glutes is if you have a low arch or flat feet. Though you could have flat feet with no issues, if you weren’t born with them, they may be a sign of weak glutes.
If you have unexplained lower back pain and can’t seem to fix it, the glutes could be your cure. Think about it like this: if you build a city on a fault line, issues are going to develop from the lack of stability. Same thing goes for your back trying to function properly on weak and unstable glutes.
Besides the obvious negative implications of being a slower runner or weaker hiker, these issues will make all aspects of life more difficult, including reading this article from your comfortable chair and air-conditioned office…POG.
Quick ways to fix weak glutes
If you don’t notice your ass firing when you walk, try some of these exercises until they do. Often it’s not only that the glutes are weak, but also that they just don’t turn on at all. If you can’t get them to turn on, then you can’t make them stronger.
Dr. Jacob Harden on Instagram: “KNOCK KNEES ROUTINE For tonight, @quaddoc put together a little something to help you out with knock knees. Knock knees has the femur…”
Learn to squat without your knees collapsing in
It’s called the valgus knee collapse and is probably the most common squatting error I see. If you allow your knees to cave in when you squat, you are taking your largest muscle group of the movement out of the exercise. Think about twisting your knees apart when you squat so that they are tracking over your toes. When practicing this, you should feel your glute medius turn on and stay active throughout the movement. You’ll feel this in the upper outer edges of your ass cheeks.
The Rock CRUSHING 455lb Hip Thrusts
Implement hip thrusts into your routine
There is an ever-expanding amount of research showing that the hip thrust is superior in activating the glutes and building a strong posterior chain. If that doesn’t sell you….The Rock does them. You are not more BA than The Scorpion King, so start hip thrusting. Here’s a great intro to the exercise.
STOP deadlifting until you learn how to do THIS/How To:Romanian DL
Teach yourself to deadlift properly
One of the top mistakes in deadlifting is squatting the deadlift. This is wrong. The deadlift is THE exercise when it comes to posterior chain development…if you do it right. If you are squatting this movement, you are using your quads, further exacerbating an anterior-posterior chain imbalance. Learn to hinge at your hips and stop bending your knees so much, so your soon to be ripe Georgia peach of a backside will thank you later.
The litmus test for well-developed glutes is simple:
If you don’t get compliments from your significant other about your butt, it is small and weak.
Make them hate to see you leave, but love watching you walk away.
