Side effects from "activating the glutes"

So you think athletes participating in sports, running 30-60min day or more, have a muscular dysfunction in their glutes?

Show me the science.

– Dr. Marco Cardinale, PhD -Writing in his sports and fitness science blog, says:

“the idea that an individual’s glutes are not firing is “absolute nonsense. If your glutes didn’t fire you wouldn’t be able to walk and your condition might suggest a spinal cord injury or neurodegenerative disease.”

Glute activation is a myth unless you are looking at a diseased population.

Any individual differences in glute activation in healthy individual is solely due to differences in anthropology.

Alan

I never stated that the glutes aren't firing, I stated that the muscles may not be working in voncert the way they need. One might be overactive, one might be underactive. Injuries, poor posture, sitting all day contributes to this.

If a runner sits all day they might need to activate his glutes before working out. Mini bands, butt kicks, straight leg shuffling, glute bridges, etc... are done for a reason.

There is no such thing as "glute activation" in running because there is no such thing as "glute non-activation." It is conceptually invalid. You should completely ignore people who use that phrase.

Lhotse wrote:

The most overlooked remedial exercise in the game is walking and jogging backwards, eventually on an incline or against resistance. Strengthens all of the supporting antagonists considerably in a holistic fashion relative to forward running.

Bumping past the semantic debate.

Lhotse wrote:

Lhotse wrote:

The most overlooked remedial exercise in the game is walking and jogging backwards, eventually on an incline or against resistance. Strengthens all of the supporting antagonists considerably in a holistic fashion relative to forward running.

Bumping past the semantic debate.

Great exercises for injury prevention (or for the sake of semantics, mitigation).

the bubble man theme is lit wrote:

There is no such thing as "glute activation" in running because there is no such thing as "glute non-activation." It is conceptually invalid. You should completely ignore people who use that phrase.

This. In a non-diseased population it's simply another tactic used by trainers to keep you interested.

Alan

Want to activate your glutes? Run.

Also backwards running is stupid....unless your sport requires back peddling.

Alan

Lhotse wrote:

Splitsquat lunges. See kneesovertoesguy YouTube.

Thank you for sharing.

Runningart2004 wrote:

Want to activate your glutes? Run.

Also backwards running is stupid....unless your sport requires back peddling.

Alan

Why skip, why do Mach drills, band walks and other coordination and "activation" exercises?

You’d have to understand that ‘activation’ of a muscle or tissue is not a bodybuilding exercise to be taken to the degree you write about here. Find a therapist that gets paid to suss out what your malfunction is ... I love it when I read these types of threads and the amount of bro-info recommended.

You haven’t a clue what you’re babbling about ... Another great example of a know it all spewing out such hubris as if you are in the profession of neurokinetic or neuromuscular therapy.

The problem is, Alan, the diseased population is a larger group of people than you think.

Yes please don't arrest me on semantics. I on purpose used quotation marks to use a popular term.

Thanks for great suggestions from the non-semantical contributors. Of course I agree that people selling ideas that you can magically activate a non-active muscle is not good though.

It is easy for me now to change the balance in what muscles I use in front or back of the legs by "hacking" my running techinque. I can run more on my toes and keep my knees slightly more flexed into the extension and I will fire my quads more and my glutes less, I can run with less flex and good extension, and weight well into my heels and feel I get more from my glutes and hamstrings and less from the quads. I can do deadlifts pushing well into my heels and feel the hamstrings and glutes activate or I can lift more on my toes and activate the quads. These are examples that show how you do things matters.

Then also the cooperation of the muscles matter in the running and neural activation and training is actually a thing, more for technical sports, but also for running. We need to repeat movements thousands of times to automate efficient movements and more easily fire the nervous signals contracting muscles.

I've been struggling for 4 years.

I wanted to run faster & began changing gait. It got so bad nyu & HSS said I shouldn't run due to dysfunction.

I had the dead glute. Weak medius. Inactive glute. Non firing glute. Non participating glute. All accurate at different times. I had to stumble upon solution by Rubix cubing trial error.

I'm coming out of it and running fundamentally sound for the first time in my life. I feel like I'm suppose to feel. Spm is where it's suppose to be. Feel like Bolt.

For me it was PT strengthening (bands, bridge). then activating (ball wall, hydrants, 1leg movements). then learning to fire it (moving with weight), Step up, lunge stuff. Rounding it out with complex movements last.. (deadlift, heavy squat, pylo drills).

It has taken 4 years. Docs, Pt couldn't get it right. Was self discovery journey

coach wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

Want to activate your glutes? Run.

Also backwards running is stupid....unless your sport requires back peddling.

Alan

Why skip, why do Mach drills, band walks and other coordination and "activation" exercises?

Skipping, technique drills, Warmup drills....are not the same as backwards running, or fancy "glute activation" exercises.

There are two parts to a Warmup.....general rise in temperature and increased blood flow to the working muscles, and moving the joints through the desired range of motion. You jog or walk for 1. Your skip, strides, etc for 2. You also have drills to focus on running technique.

Making my azz burn by doing clam shells or hip thrusts accomplishes neither.

But hey, if ya wanna waste time by working on a Kardashian sized rear go ahead.

Alan

Runningart2004 wrote:

But hey, if ya wanna waste time by working on a Kardashian sized rear go ahead.

Alan

Man, I'd love to be "working on a Kardashian sized rear: about now.. Wouldn't be reading LR that's for sure.

Since threads with the word "activation" really sparked creativity, humor and activity I need to activate this thread higher up on the list...

Actually I have not only worked on activating the glutes in running, but now also on the bike. It was concious work the whole rides, but I made it. I could feel I had given the glutes a good workout after the rides.

Activation is a real thing and it is about automating concious use of muscles. Muscles are activated two ways, either automatically through the stretch shortening cycle (a sort of protection mechanism) or conciously. Concious use fo muscles need to be trained to automate the nerve signaling. In other more technical sports it is important to work on the right movements and automate those. One starts slowly the right way and progress faster and faster. This is about building myelin around the nervous structures that fire doing the movement. So first we get concious about the muscles, then we train how to use them actively in a combined movement and then with practice this is automated. This is also relevant for running form.

So I think both ways are relevant, both to run in a way that the stretch shortening cycle is used, as well as automating the initial concious control. This is why drills and focus on good running form works.

activation is a good thing :-)

A lot of the ideas around muscle activation, developing neurological pathways, and the like, are descriptive stories. There are observed constellations of muscle firing, observed gait abnormalities, observed patterns of movement that seem to change gait patterns. Some PT's / trainers/ chiros / massage therapists will be straight forward and tell you: this is a mechanistic explanation, we really do not know for sure what is going on inside. I have personally experienced (both with a coach cuing me and without) video of me on a treadmill, made notes on my perceived gait, and then watched the video tell a different story. Then I do (in my case) the particular gluteus medius activation I was shown. Second video, see the gait closer to nominal. I was given a balance exercise on the BOSU by a PT. First time, it was just beyond my ability. Do a prep exercise, and presto, I can do the BOSU trick. Now I can do the BOSU trick without doing the prep exercise. I repeated this sequence with a friend. Friend could not quite do the BOSU trick, then I instructed the prep exercise. Now friend can do the BOSU trick. I call this repeatability "science." (TM) but my two iterations are merely anecdotal case histories.