Having a toned booty looks great, but there has to be other benefits to strengthening your glutes right? Your gluteals (maximus, medius, and minimus) are the largest and strongest muscles in your body, and they aren’t just for show.
Your glutes and hamstrings work together to extend, rotate, and abduct the hip. It is extremely important to strengthen these muscles, and doing so comes with a multitude of benefits. Building your gluteals can improve your poster, improve athletic performance, decrease your risk of injury, and so much more. Here are just a few advantages to strengthening your glutes:
#1: Improved Posture
While slouching may feel way more comfortable than standing up straight, it can have many negative effects on your body. Many of us suffer from poor posture, and at times it seems almost impossible to fix. Having weak or underdeveloped glutes can have detrimental effects on your posture, as they are part of your body’s stabilization system.
When your glutes aren’t properly toned, your latissimus dorsi overcompensates, pulling the torso and shoulders out of their proper position. If your hip flexors are stronger than your glutes, they can pull your pelvis into an unnatural alignment. This can cause both poor posture and pain. So how can you fix this problem? Simply adding some squats, lunges, and dead lifts to your current routine is a good place to start. Make sure to properly stretch out the opposing hip flexors for the best results.
#2: Injury Prevention
Your glutes are one of the main supporters of your lower back. When your glutes are weak, they may not be able to preform their main function: hip extension. If your glutes can’t do it, your body will find other muscles to take over the job. However, these helper muscles weren’t designed for that task and can become over-stressed quite easily. This can lead to pain and compression in the lumbar spine, hips, and knees.
Glutes that aren’t preforming properly increase the risk of injury to the knees, lower back, hamstrings, and groin. Therefore, strengthening these muscles is extremely important when trying to protect your body from injuries. Strong glutes help decrease the risk of injury during exercises like dead lifting by taking some of the pressure off your lower back. Protect these muscles by strengthening your glutes through exercises like hip thrusts, single leg dead lifts, and clam shells.
#3: Athletic Performance
Not only do strong glutes decrease your risk of injury, they can also help improve your overall athletic performance. Your glutes are responsible for accelerating, decelerating, changing directions, and creating explosive power in jumps. High performance sports require you to have strong glutes and hip extensors in order to achieve the best results. Athletes with strong glutes will be faster and more explosive in their movements compared to those with weaker glutes. In order to strengthen these muscles, try adding some l ower body strength training or going for a run.
#4: Defeat Back Pain
The glutes play a major role in relieving some of the stress and pressure from your lower back. Your glutes help control the movement of the pelvis, hips, legs, and torso. The glutes help slow down the flexion of your hips which helps counteract the downward pull of gravity. This helps prevent your lumbar spine from over-rounding forward. Your glutes help to stabilize the pelvis and movement in the hip joint. Therefore, having strong glutes means that your lower back doesn’t bear the full force of your motion. Using a roller to properly stretch and massage your glute muscles can help promote better movement of the pevlis, hips, and legs.
Final Thoughts
While having a well toned rear end looks great, the benefits go much deeper than just appearance. Having strong glutes is an integral part of your body’s overall health. Powerful glutes play a key role in how efficiently your body moves, and helps to limit the amount of stress put on your lower back. It is extremely important not to overlook the glutes when working out, so make sure to add some glute strengthening exercise to your current routine.
If you are interested in learning more ways to improve your glute strength or simply want to know how to live a healthier lifestyle, contact a staff member at Unique Health and Fitness in New York. We have a full equipped gym that can help you accomplish any health and fitness goal. Take a look at our locations here https://uniquehealthandfitness.com/.
