Gluteus Medius Isolated Activation

Gluteus Medius Isolated Activation is an exercise designed to focus on activating the gluteus medius muscle. This muscle, which is located on the outer sides of the pelvis, is responsible for hip abduction, steadying the pelvis when standing on one leg, and helping to prevent the lower back from arching. The exercise is an effective way to strengthen the gluteus medius in order to help improve posture, lower back stability, and hip health. It

Transcript

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Hi my name is Brent, President of B2C Fitness
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Integrated Education System, talking about
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gluteus medius activation.
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Now your gluteus medius gets weak in lower leg dysfunction, and lumbo pelvic hip complex
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dysfunction, and we've got two really easy exercises to use, the clam and the side lying
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leg raise, to increase activation of this muscle.
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We're going to have Vinnie come out here, he's our personal trainer from Definitions
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Private Training Gyms, to demonstrate this exercise.
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This exercise, like all others, is going to start with us lining our five kinetic chain
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check points.
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Now, what we've done, is we've had Vinnie lay up against a wall, as you're going to
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see this is going to reduce any chance that he can cheat.
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We're going to start with his head on his arm, make sure his shoulders are back, he's
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drawn-in, glutes are back against the wall and heels are against the wall.
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We're going to go ahead and use a towel to ensure that his heels don't mark up these
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white walls.
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Now, Vinnie is going to go ahead and try to clam shell, this is called a clam, clamshell
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his knees up as wide as he possibly can.
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Now, this becomes a great gluteus medius activation exercise, because we have abduction and external
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rotation of the femur, which inhibits the TFL, and strengthens the gluteus medius, as
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well as our leg being in this bent position, shortens the biceps femoris and makes it relatively
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inactive.
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We can progress this exercise by adding an ankle weight to his knee.
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Our next set of progressions, we're going to go straight leg.
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This is where things get really tough.
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We're going to go ahead and straighten this leg out, have him lock his knee, activating
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his quad, inhibiting his biceps femoris, as well as pushing against the wall, and externally
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rotating his foot. So, that's extension of the hip, increasing his glute activity, inhibiting
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his TFL, and he'll do the same thing.
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We'll go into abduction, as high as he can without losing his form.
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We can, once again, progress this exercise by adding ankle weight, first to his knee, and
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then with time we'll progress it up to his ankle.