Gluteal activation, lateral hip stabilization exercise, and homemade gluten free bread.

Hello again and welcome to part 3 of my four part series So You Think You Can Run!  In this blog post we will be going over an activation exercise for the glut max muscles as well as the clamshells exercise for the glut med muscles.

Wake Up Those Gluts!

The first exercise we will go over today is the gluteal activation exercise.  I do this exercise before every run, as well as if I am going to be doing any heavy weight training such as squats or deadlifts.  It helps bring awareness and activation to the gluts so that you can get a much more targeted work out.  It can also help decrease low back pain associated with gluteal amnesia.

I know what you’re thinking.  What on earth is gluteal amnesia?  And what did my gluts forget?  Gluteal amnesia is when the glut muscles don’t activate or fire off properly.  For example, when coming up out of a squat, instead of the glut muscles being the main muscles activated to bring your torso up, the hamstrings and low back muscles take over the job.  This can lead to low back pain, as well as over worked and tight hamstrings.

We can get gluteal amnesia in a couple of ways.  One way can be from adopting lazy or poor lifting habits.  An example of this is bending over to pick up objects off the ground and lifting with our low backs instead of squatting down and using our legs and gluts to lift. 

Another thing that can lead to gluteal amnesia is sitting.  Sitting is awful for us, that is why it is recommenced to get up from your desk or work space to move every 30 minutes to prevent health risks associated with it.  One of those risks is developing gluteal amnesia.  Sitting on our gluts for long periods of time creates a compressive force which is not good for both circulation and nerve function.  This can cause the glut muscles to become inactive or weak, and results in the recruitment of surrounding muscles (low back muscles and hamstrings). Tight hip flexors can also contribute to gluteal amnesia.

Gluteal Activation Exercise

We can help fix this issue by bringing awareness to our glut muscles.  Start by lying facedown on the floor and relax your body.  Let’s start with the right glut.  Place your right hand on your right glut. 

Activate your glut by squeezing your gluts together.  Once you feel that glut contraction with your right hand, you can slowly raise your right leg and thigh behind you off of the ground.  You don’t need to go too high when extending the leg, just a couple of inches.  You’ll want to avoid excessive arching of your low back.  If you feel low back pain you may be lifting your leg too high off of the floor.  After holding the leg up for 2 seconds slowly bring the leg back down and relax your muscles again.  To initiate the next rep contract your gluts, then lift your leg.  It’s very important you contract your glut first before lifting your leg, so go slowly and take your time with this.

FIDs for this exercise are 3 sets of 10 reps.  Once you do 10 on the right side, do 10 on the left.  Take your time doing this exercise, and if you feel any major pains or discomfort while doing it please discontinue.

Clam Shells Exercise

The next and final exercise I will go over are clamshells.  This is a very important muscle when it comes to running (I’m sure I’ve said that about all of them though).  Weakness in these muscles can lead to low back pain, knee pain, hip pain, and poor hip alignment.  A lot of exercises that we do involve the anterior/posterior chain (forward and backwards movements).  These include things like squats, lunges, running, swimming, and biking.  Not very often do we take time to train the lateral chain, which is unfortunate because they add stability and strength to the previously mentioned activities.

To do this exercise lie down on your left side.  Bend your left arm and place your left hand under your head to give your neck and head support.  Bend both of your knees and keep them and your feet stacked on top of one another.  With your right hand, place your right thumb on your right anterior superior iliac spine (the pointy bony thing in the front of your hip).  Place your fingers on the muscles on the side of your hip.  This is where your glut med muscle sits, and it is the muscle you will be feeling for when it is activated.  Now that we are in position make sure you don’t roll back and forth while you do this exercise.  Think about keeping your hips perpendicular with the floor.  All the movement should come from the hips.

To initiate the exercise keep your feet on top of one another, but open your legs by parting your knees.  You should feel your glut med muscle firing off underneath your finger tips as you open up your legs (like a clam).  Slowly open your legs, then slowly close them.

Remember to keep your hips perpendicular with the floor, no rocking back and forth.  It might not feel like a big range of motion, and that’s okay!  There are differences in hip anatomy which can be due to gender or ethnicity.  So if you don’t have as much range of motion in your clamshell as someone else it just might be your genetic make up.  Unless of course there is pain or a major difference in range of motion between your left and right sides then please seek medical help or consultation.

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FIDs are the same as the glut activation exercise, 3 sets of 10 reps.  Once you do 10 on the right side, do 10 on the left.  It is very important just like the glut activation exercise to SLOW DOWN and take your time with this exercise.  Focus on the muscle being activated and doing it properly.  As with all the mentioned exercises please discontinue doing the exercise if it creates abnormal pain or discomfort.

And now for something fun to do…

Before I let you go for todays blog I want to share with you my latest quarantine kitchen creation, and that’s my gluten free artisan bread!

I never thought I would ever bake my own bread, but I guess these are unprecedented times (I could go the rest of my life never hearing that term again and die happy).

I am super impressed with how this bread recipe turned out.  I had brewed my own ginger beer last week and that didn’t quite turn out like I had hoped, but I was very pleased when I was able to use some of it for this recipe (if anyone knows of a good ginger beer recipe please send it my way).  I just used a generic gluten free flour from the store.  As for toppings I used sesame seeds, caraway seeds, onion salt, and pink Himalayan raspberry and rosemary flavoured salt.  Yes it was delicious!

A disclaimer with the recipes, I am not a nutritionist!  These recipes are intended for fun and for something to do during our COVID-19 isolations.

That’s it for today’s blog! Thank you again for reading.  Part 4 of the So You Think You Can Run Series will be putting the what we talked about all together.  If you have any questions please email me at clayton@yourwellnessatwork.ca.  Thank you very much and have a great day!

Best in health,

Clayton Giles, RMT
Your Wellness at Work