Side-Stepping - Another Progression (Gluteus Medius Reactive Integration/Activation)

Side-Stepping - Another Progression is an exercise designed to strengthen and activate the gluteus medius muscle, a powerful muscle located deep in the hip that is often weakened from long hours of sitting. Using a resistance band, this exercise requires stepping side-to-side, stretching the band and increasing tension as the hip abducts. This action works to strengthen and activate the gluteus medius, improving hip stability and helping to prevent injury. Ideal for all fitness levels,

Transcript

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This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness,
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and we're talking about sidestepping
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progressions, or a forgotten progression anyway. I happened to forget this
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particular progression in our sidestepping progressions video, so this
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is one more you can add to your repertoire in that gluteus medius
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integration series. I'm going to have my buddy, Mike, come out help me demonstrate
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from Metropolitan Fitness. Alright, so we've got a fit loop just above
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Mike's knees. Now, I prefer that the resistance is just above the knees,
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because once I queue him to put a little pressure out on it, to help queue
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femoral external rotation and abduction, that will help reduce the activity of my
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overactive synergist, being my TFL, and then as long as he keeps a fairly
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upright posture, although he can get a little bit more forward lean, and
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he keeps his spine straight, we'll keep quadratus lumborum and piriformis out of
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this. He's got his feet nice and straight. Now, this progression is both
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forward, and back, and sideways. So now what we're working on is, can Mike use
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both his glute medius and glute max to drive forward? So what we have to really
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watch for is, a lot of people will try to do this and reach, and what I need Mike
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to be able to do is push with this leg. So if we're coming this way, it's going
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to be that glue that's going to drive him this way. So, first things first, we're
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going to queue him to put a little pressure on that band, take an athletic position,
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a little bit of forward lean, I want you to drive in a diagonal that way. Good.
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Then I want you to just go ahead and reach back with the other leg,
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extending back, putting the ball of your foot on the floor. Good. Make sure when you
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drive forward this time I want this leg fully extended. Push. Good, much
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better, and then step back. Good. Push with this leg.
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So, as you can tell just by the movement, use your imagination a
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little bit, keep going Mike, that this would be a great exercise for my
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basketball players and their first step quickness. Mike's a pitcher this is great
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for him to increase glute drive as he's trying to create some velocity moving
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forward off the mound. Keep going let's come back. So now once he's going this way, it's
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this glute that's driving him forward.
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Alright, I'm going to have Mike do somewhere between 20 and 40 reps,
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or 10 to 20 reps per leg. I could integrate this in the rest of his
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sidestepping progressions, I could create like a little circuit where has some
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side stepping this way, and then side stepping forward and back, and then a
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forward and back waltz, and then the quarter turns that we've talked about in
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other videos. Or, if I just wanted to work on his mechanics on this particular
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pattern, I could also use just this exercise within his integrated warm up.
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How do your glutes feel Mike? -They're definitely warmed up! Alright, I think
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you will have a lot of fun with this exercise, I think you'll definitely