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Gluteus Medius Activation Progressions (Activation Circuit)
Gluteus Medius Activation Progressions is an activation circuit designed to strengthen the gluteus medius muscle. The circuit is made up of 3-4 exercises that target the glutes, including lateral band walks, abductor machine exercises, hip hikes, and clamshell variations. The exercises are done for 10-15 repetitions per side, and work to improve posture, reduce knee and hip pain, and prevent injury. This circuit can be done anywhere, making it great
Transcript
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This is Brent coming at you with gluteus
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is just a video to kind of lay out some of the new techniques that I've found,
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that I've been working on, to help keep progressing gluteus medius activation. So,
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we're going to talk about a smattering of techniques, to ensure we're getting
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the most out of these exercises. I'm going to have my friend, Leanne, come out
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and help me demonstrate. So the trick with all gluteus medius activation, I'm
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sure some of you guys have already found this out, is trying to get the TFL to
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calm down. Now that starts doing good, we need good release, stretching, and
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mobilization techniques, and hopefully you've done that before you get somebody
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on the table, but, we still need to refine our techniques as much as we can to
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ensure that we're getting the most out of our gluteus medius, and TFL isn't
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creeping its way back in. So I'm going to have Leanne go ahead and lay on her side.
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One thing that I've found pretty effective, although I honestly have to admit that
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this is a progression, as soon as Leanne backs her body off the wall, it's going
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to take her a lot more lumbo-pelvic hip stability and control, to get this
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exercise right. So hopefully you've started somebody on the wall, now we can
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progress them a little bit, move them away from the wall, and then we get to
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use this little trick with a stability ball. If I have Leanne go into her side
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lying leg raise, but this time I have her do a side lying leg raise by pressing
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this ball into the wall. Just by pressing the ball on the wall and holding it
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there I've got glute activation, which is going to help reciprocally inhibit my
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TFL, and then we get an added benefit, that, literally the shape of the
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stability ball, allows her to go into extension and external rotation as she
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goes up, which of course is all the joint actions that the gluteus medius will do,
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and further reciprocally inhibits the TFL. Is that pretty tough? -Yeah. If I wanted to
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progress this exercise, of course, I could use an ankle weight. Ankle weights
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started here above the knee, and then I can move it down to the
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ankle. Start light, it doesn't take much to resist. I do find that I prefer
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ankle weights to bands. Obviously with bands, they start with almost no
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resistance, and I think what you will find, is if you go to muscle test to
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somebody who's been doing band gluteus medius work, that you'll get them here in
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the neutral position where they need that gluteus medius strength for gate
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and sprinting, and they actually test weak. So, ankle weights, to me, they create a nice
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even resistance through the whole range so I tend to use ankle weights more, and
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tend to have better results. Now, I do have those individuals who have really,
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really, really, stubborn TFLs. That even this jacks up their TFL. So what I've
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started to realize, is we can use a little bit of an activation circuit to
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calm the TFL down further, improve hip mechanics, as almost a warm up to our
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activation exercise. So I'm going to show you a couple of things I use here. Leanne's
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going to go ahead and sit up. How many of you have probably done glute sets?
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Well glute sets, in a long sit position, this is just food for thought for you, if
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I can really get Leanne to squeeze her quad, start with a quad set, good, and then
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really squeeze her glute by pressing her leg down into the table, her glute in
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this position, posteriorly glides her femoral head, and her acetabulum.
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So her femoral head, glute tight, femoral head is slowly gliding this
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way, that's exactly what we need, right? We know that femoral head has a propensity
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to do an anterior and superior glide. That anterior superior glide further
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increases the tenacity of our TFL. So I use this, having her do 15 to 20, this is
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not one of those things that has to be super, super, super hard. It just has to be a little
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warm-up for her glutes, and getting that femur to move right. If I did want
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to resist it, I could throw a band around her foot, then we have tibialis anterior
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activation, right? So I'm going to have her dorsiflex with her toes curled
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down, quad and then glute. That's tough. So now I'm getting a lot
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involved, but I'm also resisting that posterior from wall glide, again
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improving those joint mechanics. Her glutes have to work really hard to keep
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that moving the way it's supposed to. From here, from this exercise, I could
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have her then lie on her side, and I could have her do clams. Some of you
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might be like, 'well why are you going to do clams if you're already
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going to do side lying leg raises?'. Well, clams are an easier exercise, and the
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only thing I'm thinking about right now is trying to warm up her glute medius,
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get it a little bit active, before I do the hard resistance training and
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reconditioning that the side lying leg raise is. So, little key point though, if
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they have a really stubborn TFL, you're going to want to take this foot, and let
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it internally rotate. Remember your TFL, via your iliotibial band, is an external
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rotator of the tibia. So a lot of people who have a really stubborn TFL, you'll
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also notice when they go to do clams, they externally rotate their tibia,
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this foot comes up with their leg. So what I'm going to have Leanne do here is put
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her foot down, and then do her clam, and I'm going to just have her do 15 to 20 reps.
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This isn't looking to kill her, this isn't where the resistance training is
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happening, that's going to be the ball. So once again I did glute sets, you could
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progress that to glute sets with a band and then turn it into dorsiflexion, quads
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set and glutes set. I'm then going to have her do clams, and we could go ahead and add an
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ankle weight to her knee. Once we get all of this warmed up, we get that posterior
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femoral glide, we get a little bit of gluteus medius activity, then I'm going to
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go back to the ball, and if I can get her pelvis position set up so that she's not
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rotating back, and turning this back into hip flexion, I think what you
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will find, is one very active gluteus medius. All of a sudden this exercise
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becomes really, really, tough. How does that feel? Feel better than the first
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time we did it? -Yes. So there you go. You've got the ball exercises of gluteus medius
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progression, and a couple pointers for a stubborn
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TFL: glute sets, followed by clams, followed by your side lying leg raise. I hope you
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