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  • What's up, guys?

  • Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.

  • Kicking off a new series here today.

  • Were talking about Red Flags.

  • Today were 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.

  • To make sure that you don’t miss this or any other video in this series, youve got

  • to get off your ass and make sure you hit subscribe and turn on the notifications as

  • well, so you never miss a video from this channel.

  • Guys, one by one I’m going to knock out five 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 yourselfWhy 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; theyre 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 were addressing them individually.

  • If you don’t, youre going to have bad posture.

  • You could have anterior pelvic tilt.

  • I made a whole video on this before.

  • You could have a weakness in your big lifts.

  • Youre not lifting as much, nearly as much as you could on your deadlift and squat because

  • of a weakness in your glutes.

  • Youre not getting as much power, or speed if youre athlete.

  • Everything comes down to the powerhouse 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.

  • Youre 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 to the floor.

  • From here youre 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 to get 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.

  • Youre 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, were shortening the hamstring.

  • Were contracting the hamstring a little bit.

  • Meaning, were 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 try to lift up toward the ceiling, can you still

  • do that?

  • And can you still feel any contraction in the 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 more of the work and the glutes aren’t as strong

  • as you think they are.

  • Which means theyre going to need work.

  • You want to make sure you test this on both sides 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 youve 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 25lbs in each hand here.

  • Remember, when you lunge out youre 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, were looking for their ability to control the frontal plane.

  • So, you take whatever that weight is – 25lbs in each handcombine it for 50lbs, now

  • take a 50lb 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 out here with that double weight straight down,

  • and straight back, nice and controlled, for about three to four reps.

  • And back, nice and controlled.

  • Youre not lookingyou want to make sure youre not doing that.

  • Fall into that side and let that hip kick out on you.

  • Remember, test both sides here again.

  • Number three is another one we can do down here on the ground, no equipment at all.

  • Again, red flag.

  • Youve got make sure that we at least reveal these, so we know what were dealing with.

  • I want you to get down on your ground, get on your back, and were 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 shortchange the bridge.

  • They stop here.

  • That’s not full hip extension.

  • To get the full hip extension youve got to lift until youve basically drawn a straight

  • line between your quads and your torso.

  • If youre going to roll something it will roll 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’s one of the biggest problems.

  • If youre cramping in the hamstrings at all youre in trouble.

  • It’s going to get worse because what I want you to do is to, in this position, test the

  • right side.

  • Youre going to get right there and lift the left leg off the ground.

  • Two things youre looking for.

  • If I lift the left leg off the ground do I immediately start to drop here?

  • Do I start to sag?

  • If you do it’s because you don’t have strong enough glutes on this side.

  • We should all be able to perform a single leg bridge with our own bodyweight.

  • But if you start to drop that’s sign number one.

  • Number two: youll 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 in this hamstring, then you have assigned here

  • that your glutes are weak.

  • Why?

  • Because your glutes are what should be driving hip 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 theyre trying 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 saysHey!

  • Wake up, you lazy ass (literally) and start doing some of the work, and don’t make me

  • the hamstringsdo everything that youre supposed to be doing.”

  • It’s a great sign, guys.

  • Remember, test both sides, right and left to find out where you stand.

  • Number four, 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 itpseudo low back pain’.

  • I made a whole video on this.

  • I’m going to show you what it looks like here and I’ll link it down in the description

  • below.

  • You want to watch that if you have what I’m showing you here because I promise it’s

  • going to fix it.

  • Even as I promised in that video, instantly; youre going to feel instant relief.

  • Watch.

  • This is what were talking about.

  • This area right here – I’m going to get a little naughty herebut weve 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 to the outside of that boneso 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 likeWow,

  • that is exactly – I can pinpoint where that is”, then my friend; youve 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 just showed 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 spoteither on the

  • right side or leftis enough to tell me that 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 pelvis and the glutes as well.

  • So why are they not impacting each other?

  • This is the thing, were going to jump to one 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,

  • youre 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 are a 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 focusing on how much theyre 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 of the work because the hips and glutes are not

  • contracted.

  • If instead I squeeze into extension, all of a 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, beginners can 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, youre testing your ability.

  • If you just can’t get your hips up and you can’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 start to 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.

  • Theyre geared to be powerhouses.

  • Theyre probably not doing anywhere near the full capacity of what theyre capable

  • of for you, and that’s a problem.

  • We need to fix it.

  • So, guys, if youre looking for a program that puts the science back in strength, step

  • by step, we show you how to do these things because it all matters; all of our programs

  • are available over at ATHLEANX.com.

  • In the meantime, if youve found the video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up

  • below.

  • Remember, if you haven’t already, subscribe and turn on those notifications.

  • You need to do both steps in order to get notified every time I run a new video.

  • All right, guys.

  • See you soon.

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