Hi, everyone!
I'm trainer Amy Jo with ATHLEANXX for Women, and today I want to give you some effective
tools, tips, and exercises for the worst ones for the glutes.
So a few of them are some tips that I want to give you, and a few of them are exercises
to avoid.
All right.
So the very first one I want to talk about are step ups.
They are great for legs, they're great if you're doing them properly.
Step ups are an exercise that you're using a higher bench, and your one foot is up, and
you're standing up, and everyone thinks they're a great glute exercise.
So when you're stepping up, the one problem I have is this back toe, right here.
Usually we hop up off that back toe.
That's the main problem right there.
So yes, it is working the leg, and it is working the glute if you're doing it properly.
So this is a good exercise, but you might want to focus way more on pressing through
this heel and not as much on the toe.
So the higher the step, yes, that's going to target the glutes more, but then you're
also going to need to push off that toe a little harder to step up.
So when we're pushing up you want to rebound slowly here, and focus more on coming back
up again on that heel.
So just take it a little slower if you're going to continue to do step ups.
If you're not feeling them the way you should then forego them, and move on.
There are several other great glute exercises that you can focus on.
So that's one.
The other one that I wanted to talk to you about is hitting different angles with the
glute.
So not only do we want to involve squats, and deadlifts, and hip thrusts; you're hitting
a certain plane of motion.
You're focusing on a certain plane all the time.
The mistake is that we're never changing directions.
So you want to make sure that you're hitting the glute different because there are three
major glute muscles that create the entire butt.
So we want to hit all of them, not just one of them.
That's what we're doing when you're just doing hip thrusts, and deadlifts, and squats.
You're moving in one motion.
It's up, and down.
So focusing on other things like this.
Side movements, side to side squats, or the curtsy lunge where you're going behind; changing
different directions is really important.
Or when you're seated and you're doing your outer glute machine exercise, the machines
are a great one because it's hitting a different range of motion that you would with a squat,
or a lunge, and so forth.
All right, moving onto my other tip.
When you're going too light.
The other tip, when you're doing glute exercises, if you're going too light you're not going
to build the glute muscle.
The glutes are sleeping giants, so to speak.
So we want to make sure you're attacking them with full force.
If you go too light you're never going to put enough pressure on the glute muscle to
actually grow, and be torn down to grow new muscle fibers, and bigger muscle fibers.
So focus on going heavy enough.
My next tip is lunges.
Walking lunges are one of those as well, where your quads kick in.
I have more dominant quads as well, so I understand that I have to be very aware of having that
mind-muscle connection for an exercise.
So when you're doing a walking lunge here, our leg likes to kick in and perform that
exercise, versus more on the glute.
So a lot of individuals are just doing it, not as proper as you should.
So if you feel like it's an effective exercises for you, and the next day after doing walking
lunges your glutes are sore; then that probably means you're doing it properly, and you have
a great mind-muscle connection with the glute.
If not, avoid the exercise.
Forego it and move onto other ones such as the hip thrust, deadlifts, single leg exercises,
which are great, single leg squats, and so on.
My last tip is: anything that hurts.
If you're squatting and your knee is hurting, your hips are hurting; you're not going to
build the glutes as effectively as you should.
It's just going to promote more injury, and it's going to slow you down from progress.
So my last tip is to remember that you don’t want to do anything that is hurting you.
So avoid those.
Stick with exercises that are safe for you and effective.
So hopefully these tips, certain exercises, are definitely letting you know the best way,
the most effective way to target the glutes, and the worst way.
Leave me a thumbs up, comment below of some other exercises that you think just aren't
as effective.
Thanks for joining me!
I'm Amy Jo.
We'll see you next time.