RyecorDone wrote:
Runningart2004 wrote:
Again as I've said it before......
Your gluteus maximus is your primary hip extensor. Hence runners and especially sprinters have well defined and strong gluteus muscles.
Stand on one foot. Raise you knee. Now extend your hip by simply kicking back (swing your bent leg to the rear).
Glute activation is trainer speak for give me money.
Alan
Or, framed the opposite way, stand on one foot, bend your other leg's knee. Now forcefully kick that bent leg forward, like you do when you are accelerating in a sprint. That forward kick can't happen unless the standing leg's hamstrings and glutes brace for it. You think you are kicking back, actively extending your hip. But that is an effect, not a cause. The acceleration comes from the forward kick, and the braced rear leg just goes backward passively as the front leg kicks forward. The hip extension follows, aligns with, the rear leg. But hip extension isn't the driving force. Its the forward leg flexion that creates and maintains the acceleration. Newton's 3rd law.
If you are a jogger, you just try to keep up with pendulum action, swinging your front leg just fast enough and taking advantage of gravity to keep from falling down, you stand for a longer time on one leg. If you don't flex your hip (pelvic thrust), and don't bend your upper body forward at the waist, you can easily notice your glutes activating - bracing. If you accelerate, you will feel it even more, but it is transient. If you don't brace with your glutes, you'd be sitting down. That bracing support for the forward leg kick doesn't have to work hard after the front leg is fully extended., unless you artificially try to extend your toe 'paw back' contact time, under the mistaken assumption that it is the rear kick that propels you.
But, I could be full of b.s. Alan is the expert around here. Just offering the converse version.
I am no expert. I just have a basic understanding of human anatomy and the function of various muscles in the body.
The gluteus maximus is your primary hip extender. Any time your femur moves backward your glutes are involved.
Alan