💪Adding plyometric moves, like butt kicks, to your regular exercise routine can strengthen your hamstrings, which may help you run faster & more efficiently. Even if you're not a runner, adding 'Glute Exercises' to your workout can be a great way to increase your heart rate, boost your stamina, & elevate your fitness💪
💪You don't need any equipment for this class, but resistance bands will increase the intensity of your workout💪
👍Starts Tue 8th June @ 10.30am.Join me live online. PM or Text 087-9514346 to book your spot👍
5 Benefits of Glutes Training
1. Better posture✔
As a consequence of “sitting disease”, many of us suffer from poor posture. Tight, shortened hip flexors, weak, over-stretched hip extensors and glutes that ‘forget’ how to activate properly all contribute to the most commonly observed postural deviations: swayback and kyphosis-lordosis.
What’s more, forward-tilting hips push the abdomen out, creating the illusion of a ‘gut’, even in the absence of excess belly fat.
Try adding squats, lunges and dead lifts to your current strength training routine, making sure to adequately stretch out the opposing hip flexors to improve posture and reduce belly ‘pooch’. This is perhaps the quickest (and easiest) way to lose 5 pounds and appear an inch or two taller!
2. Pain reduction and injury prevention✔
Strong glutes support the lower back. When the glutes aren’t strong enough to perform their hip extension function, muscles that weren’t designed for the job will take over. Over time, these ‘helper’ muscles may become overstressed, resulting in pain and compression in the lumbar spine, hips and knees.
Because the glutes are also hip stabilizers, weak gluteal muscles can result in poor alignment of the entire lower body, leaving you prone to injuries including Achilles tendonitis, shin splints, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) sprains and tears and iliotibial (IT) band syndrome.
Protect your hips, knees and ankles by strengthening your glutes with hip thrusts, single leg dead lifts and weighted clam shells.
3. Improved athletic performance✔
The gluteus maximus is capable of generating an enormous amount of power. This power can be translated into sports-specific speed, acceleration, vertical distance, and endurance. Training the hips to extend powerfully and propel the body forwards is key to improving your ability to run, jump, and cycle faster, harder, and longer.
Try adding in a day or two of lower body strength training on days when you’re not scheduled for a long run or cycle. And don’t forget to stretch and foam roll afterwards to maintain hip mobility and flexibility.
4. Increased bone density✔
Bone density peaks somewhere between 5 and 10 years after we reach skeletal maturity. Starting as early as age 30, old and damaged bone is resorbed faster than new bone is formed resulting in increased risk of osteopaenia (lower than normal bone density) and osteoporosis (a progressive bone disease).
Exercises that place mechanical stress on the bones, including lower body weight training, running and some forms of yoga, can postpone and even reverse the effects of age-related bone-density loss. The earlier you start incorporating them in your training, the greater their potential benefits.
5. Fat loss and fat loss maintenance✔
Fat loss requires a daily caloric deficit. Burn more calories than you consume and you’ll lose fat (more or less). Unlike adipose tissue, muscle is metabolically active, meaning that even when you’re not working out, your muscles will burn calories from stored fat. In fact, studies suggest that for every pound of muscle you build, your body will burn an extra 50 calories per day.
Given that the glutes and hamstrings are two of the largest muscle groups in the body, their potential contribution to fat loss is not to be underestimated. Try incorporating a variety of squats and lunges in a whole-body-compound-lift style circuit to build muscle, torch fat and continue burning calories for 24 to 48 hours after your workout is over.
❤Follow me on Instagram 'keane-on-fitness' for more health & fitness tips❤
Facebook 'Fitness with Debs'