This year was definitely….interesting. And there is a lot we can learn from the challenges to help us move forward and get even better results in 2021!
Here are some key takeaways and tips to help you rock your goals and learn from the past.
You can’t control what you can’t control
Something is better than nothing
Don’t delay, start today!
There will be ups and downs, but our goal is to make the lows less low.
Don’t try to go it alone.
What are the biggest lessons you learned in 2020? Comment below!
And the more “elite” the level you want to reach? The more sacrifices you’ll probably have to make.
Especially if you want results faster.
While of course we can’t out work time to some extent, the more we want results…well…now…the more sacrifices we will have to make.
Versus the longer we are willing to commit to the process?
Well the less “perfect” you often need to be because you are willing to be in it for the long haul.
And consistency goes a long way when we give it time.
However, while we may not have to be as “perfect,” we then do need to sacrifice more “time.”
There is always a “catch.” 😉
But, anyway, I bring this up because I think too often we set ourselves up for failure when it comes to reaching our goals because we aren’t willing to endure the sacrifices.
We don’t face them before getting started.
Instead we look for a magic pill. A quick and easy fix.
And the second we hit that difficult situation, that sacrifice? We give up.
But sorry…there really is no magic pill. That’s not really how life works haha
So the more we can go in with our eyes wide open about the “cost” of reaching our goals?
The better off we will be.
It’s not being negative. It’s being realistic.
It’s about facing the “worst” and knowing whether the cost is worth the reward to us.
It’s also about realizing that “sacrifices” aren’t really sacrifices if you want something that much.
Is the goal WORTH IT to you?
We have to remember that with every decision we make, we are “missing out” on something else.
We also have to recognize that what we see as a means to reaching our goals, others may call OBSESSION.
But sometimes we have to risk being a little “obsessed” to reach our goals. We have to go that extra mile that others aren’t willing to go.
It really comes down to…what do you value most? There is no right or wrong choice or goal.
Life is about pursuing what matters to us.
It’s just always key we understand there is a cost to every decision we make.
That we are always sacrificing something in favor of something else.
You may be thinking, “Awaken my glutes?!” But if they weren’t awake, how could I stand up!?
While our glutes are working, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to stand up, that doesn’t mean they’re functioning well let alone optimally.
And the fact that you aren’t able to utilize that oh so powerful muscle group efficiently or effectively may be why you have lower back, hip, knee, groin, hamstring…even ankle aches and pains.
It’s also why terms like “dead butt,” “sleepy butt” and “gluteal amnesia” have become more and more popular.
So then why may we be struggling to awaken our glutes?
Unfortunately, our daily desk job, or work posture, may be partly to blame.
We often spend far too much time seated, which keeps our hips in constant flexion. This consistent hip flexion leads to overactive and tight hip flexors and underactive glutes.
You may be thinking, “Well I squat and deadlift if my workouts so shouldn’t that then activate my glutes?”
The simple answer is…
No.
And the whole “squat for a better butt thing” may actually be why you AREN’T seeing the glute results you want!
While squats and deadlifts are AMAZING and ESSENTIAL compound moves, we can often use improper recruitment patterns to try and mimic proper movement patterns when performing these moves.
Say whaaat?!
Basically, we’re using the wrong muscles to try and make the move look correct.
It’s why you may feel your lower back during deadlifts over your glutes. Or feel only your quads during squats. Or maybe even your hamstrings during glute bridges.
All of these muscles are becoming overworked trying to take on extra because your glutes aren’t pulling their weight.
And this compensation is what leads to overload of muscles that shouldn’t be made to carry the load of work they’re being asked to perform.
And that overload is what leads to injury.
That’s why I wanted to share 3 key tips to help you awaken your glutes BEFORE you lift, run or ride!
How To AWAKEN YOUR GLUTES – 3 Keys:
These 3 key tips will help you establish a more efficient mind-body connection to engage those glutes properly during exercises.
They focus on a key, but often missing component. of our warm up and prehab process – ACTIVATION EXERCISES.
Whether due to our modern desk job posture or even previous injury, all too often we have imbalances and compensations we need to correct.
These tips will help you do that to get those glutes firing!
1. Isolate To Activate
So you may be thinking, “What even are activation exercises?”
Activation exercises are very isolated movements that help you focus on only the muscle you actually want to work working.
These very isolated movements are the perfect way to make sure you’re actually engaging, or activating, the muscle you want to work.
In this case, your GLUTES!
Activation moves are isolation exercises done with bodyweight or very light loads. They aren’t the moves you focus on adding heavy loads to.
They generally have smaller ranges of motion and create peak tension on the glutes when the muscles are shortened.
These activation moves are often the “silly-looking” moves we dismiss because we think only women wearing leg warmers do them to get a bigger butt.
But these very targeted moves help us focus on what we feel working.
You want to think about these moves as a chance to use your MIND to engage the muscles harder not on trying to progress the weight you can lift.
You want to be thinking, “What do I actually feel working?” And actually KNOW what you feel working.
When you use these moves in your warm up, you’ll perform higher reps for fewer sets.
You want to create a “burn” or “pump” with these moves. This pump makes it easier for you to then know your glutes are working when you go into compound lifts or hit the trails.
But you don’t want to go to fatigue with these moves. You just want to feel your glutes working, feel that burn build, then stop and move into your training!
You also need to remember, you are NEVER above these basics. And the better your mind-body connection?
The easier it should be to feel those glutes working even with a very basic, simple moves such as the bodyweight glute bridge!
2. Activate And Stretch
Often when our hips feel tight, or we know we’ve spent far too much time seated, we turn to stretching.
But so often when we stretch, we’re only focused on relaxing the overactive muscle. We aren’t focused on then getting the correct muscles working.
It’s why it can feel like we spend all of this time stretching to just constantly end up tight again!
So while stretching is an important component of your mobility routine, it’s key we realize that by focusing on activation exercises we are also stretching out those tight and shortened hip flexors.
Through a process called reciprocal inhibition you are stretching out your hips by activating your glutes.
Reciprocal inhibition is a neurologic process where muscles on one side of a joint relax to accommodate the contraction of muscles on the other side of that joint.
Your glutes contract, which means your hip flexors then have to relax to allow the extension.
It’s why it’s so key we include those isolation activation exercises.
They allow us to focus on actually engaging our glutes to correctly perform hip extension and therefore relax and stretch those tight hip flexors.
Too often when we ask our body to perform hip extension if we haven’t first “awakened” our glutes, we end up arching our lower back to compensate or even end up creating other pelvic alignment issues in an attempt to mimic the movement pattern we can’t correctly control.
That’s why we want to include these activation moves to not only stretch but also engage those underactive muscles!
These activation moves allow us to improve our hip mobility AND our hip stability to prevent aches and pains so we can run faster, cycle further and lift more.
3. Use Different Postures And MultiPlanar Movements
When we think about our glutes, we have to consider all of the joint actions this muscle group performs – hip extension, hyperextension, abduction, external rotation.
That’s why it is key we address all 3 glute muscles and include activation moves that move our hips through multiple planes of motion.
You want to include things like lateral raises but also bridges and reverse hypers. You want to think about moves that are straight lateral raises to the side but that also include rotation.
And then you also want to consider different POSTURES.
While it may seem like a small tweak to a move, slightly different body positions can impact how easily we are able to establish that mind-body connection to engage those glutes. And different postures can even impact what aspect of each glute muscle we activate.
Based on our builds, and even previous injuries and mobility restrictions, we may find some positions harder than others to properly activate our glutes in.
This doesn’t mean we avoid these movements. It just means we need to build up to them or even include other moves FIRST to help establish that mind-body connection BEFORE we implement those moves we struggle with.
It’s why doing a seated clam type movement may be easier for you than a side lying variation.
While both are needed, as you want to be able to engage your glute medius through different degrees of hip flexion and hip extension, you also want to make sure to start with the move you can control and build up to the movement you struggle with.
If you just implement the other movement while NOT feeling the correct muscles working? You may end up making your aches and pains worse by PERPETUATING those improper recruitment patterns.
Basically, you’ll keep overloading the muscles that are overworked even while doing the supposedly “right” moves.
Being able to engage the correct muscles is key if we want to avoid injury and truly build functional strength.
It’s why we want to include a diversity of activation moves that work our glutes in multiple planes of motion using different postures!
READY TO AWAKEN YOUR GLUTES?
If you want results, you can’t just randomly string moves together “hoping” they’ll work.
You need to create a clear plan and progression.
And it’s not just enough to find the supposedly “best” activation moves and then just use those.
You need to actually be conscious of what you FEEL working during those exercise.
The “right” moves don’t get results if the correct muscles aren’t working.
Sometimes slight tweaks to form make all the difference…like turning down your toe and internally rotating that lower leg on lateral raises so your TFL doesn’t compensate for your glute medius!
Or like driving your knees toward your toes when you bridge up so you don’t feel your hamstrings or lower back taking over for your glutes.
That’s why I created my Booty Burner program.
I wanted to help clients activate their glutes with quick series they could even ultimately use as part of their warm up routine before their lifting sessions, runs or rides.
I wanted to help them establish that mind-body connection to improve their hip stability and mobility to avoid lower back, hip and even knee pain.
I wanted to show them how they could isolate to activate, activation and stretch and use different postures and multiplanar movements to get the amazing results they wanted.
I wanted to take all of the guesswork out of awakening those glutes to create those more efficient and effective recruitment patterns.
So if you’re ready to have a clear plan laid out for you with FOLLOW ALONG WORKOUT VIDEOS so I can coach you through the moves and help you modify as you need to actually get your glutes working?
These series, ranging from 3 minutes to 15 minutes are a great way to establish that mind-body connection and truly build strong glutes with a clear plan laid out for you!
But so much of what we state that we are too old for, we actually need to be doing more of.
We also have to remember that fitness is always about ability.
Our needs and goals do change. And they always will over time,
But more importantly, we have to recognize that lifestyle factors add up. And the longer we ignore them the more they can build up to create overload.
And that is the real issue.
Not our age.
Those lifestyle factors, and how we address them, may make us feel old at 25. Or not old at 105.
Think of your body like a plate.
There may be no cracks in the plate to start.
But through a lack of attention to proper movements, or prehab….and constantly sitting hunched over textbooks and at computers….well…we start to build cracks in that plate.
But as we are creating cracks in this plate, we’re also stacking more and more stuff on it.
We’re training harder without warming up. We’re not sleeping well. We’re drinking. Eating crap food. Stressing at work.
We’re adding weight constantly to this plate as we even add more cracks.
And then when the plate finally breaks and everything falls off, we claim it’s because it is too old.
But it wasn’t the age of the plate. It’s all the stuff we did too it while ignoring the cracks.
It’s why if you start younger creating habits that don’t create such dramatic damage OR you take time to try to REPAIR the damage you can avoid feeling old and like you now can’t do the things you love.
Sure does wear and tear happen? Will we want to adjust our training methods because of different goals and the fact that with age our body does change.
100%
But too often we hold ourselves back from training the way we want because of age when it’s really INJURIES or our fitness level or our goals that are dictating what we need.
Studies have shown time and time again the importance of lean muscle to longevity, only reinforced by the importance of grip strength as an indicator of health and longevity.
So stop saying you CAN’T do something because of your age. Your goal should always be to rebuild so you can clear yourself to do more.
And the younger you start addressing your postural distortion…the younger you stop thinking you’re invisible, well the less old you’ll ever feel.
We’re not too old. If anything we just have to stop being stupider when we are younger.
Tips to help you adjust your fitness to feel young forever.
Include prehab work.
Use every move as an assessment and focus on those recruitment patterns.
Use variations that fit your goals.
Stop having the attitude of no pain no gain. This creates the cracks. You’re not being paid to train through pain. You can work around.
Change requires change no matter how you look at it
And often the changes we need the most?
Well they’re uncomfortable.
Changes that make us uncomfortable don’t feel sustainable. They feel so against everything we’ve been doing we find excuses not to make them.
We even find ways to try to VALIDATE not doing them.
We waste time putting up more mental barriers against the changes instead of just trying them, truly testing the changes by committing to them 100%, and seeing it as an experiment to gain a better understanding of our body.
Often those uncomfortable changes are necessary to achieve a new and better result.
Often those changes we least want to make, are the ones we need the most.
And once we actually mentally GET ON BOARD with the changes? Once we stop trying to find reasons NOT to do it?
Well we realize it isn’t actually that hard after all.
That NEW becomes habit.
And amazingly sometimes we even think after awhile, “How was I not doing this before?!
It is in our nature not to want to change.
Change is uncomfortable. And we don’t really like being uncomfortable.
Plus, with change there is a fear of failure.
That’s why it’s key we ADMIT why we truly don’t want to make the change. We lower those mental barriers by RECOGNIZING them.
We need to say to ourselves, “Ok I know this is going to be uncomfortable. I know I won’t like it to start BUT I’ve got to take this risk and LEARN if I want a better outcome.”
By recognizing what holds us back from at least TRYING something new, we can then better move forward and commit 100% to the plan.
Because if you don’t test something new? If you keep doing what you’ve always done?
You can’t keep expecting things to turn out better.
STOP trapping yourself in a hamster wheel working really hard without getting anywhere. You have the power at any time to step off that wheel by making an uncomfortable change.
And once you do?
You’ll be amazed often how much BETTER things are and how that new lifestyle builds into something sustainable.
We just often have to be willing to dive in and trust the process!
Recognize why you are resistant to the change. And remind yourself that change requires change.
Choose to recognize it as an experiment.
Don’t shut yourself in a bubble. Be willing to see the other side.
Recognize that you truly need to give something your 100% effort to know if it will or won’t work.
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