Depending on where you are speaking at, when you say G-max people may have different things in mind. If it is people who are automobile oriented, they’ll think you are talking about one of the brands from Isuzu. If you are talking to gym personnel or Physiotherapists they will think muscle. Now, if you are talking to a patient, you may need to explain what you are talking about.
The glutes consist of 3 muscles namely; Gluteus:
- Maximus
- Medius
- Minimus
These muscles form the buttocks (butt)
Gluteus Maximus (or g-max to its friends) is the single biggest muscle in the human body. It has a huge role to play in our athletic performance alongside Gluteus Medius and Minimus. Our glute muscles do much more than just make us look good in yoga pants. They help us maintain proper posture and engage in activities like running, jumping, and climbing.
Whether you’re trying to get a bigger booty or not, you still need to be strengthening your glutes. Think about how often you do things like walking, standing up, or using the stairs — without our glutes, these movements would be impossible.
Unfortunately, most of us are actively weakening our gluteal muscles with an activity we spend hours on every day: sitting. However according to a survey by ergonomic manufacturer Ergotron, 86 percent of full-time American workers are required to sit all day, every day. And that’s just at work.
Combine long hours at your desk with your evening Netflix binge on the couch and you’ve got a recipe for weak glutes and tight hip flexors, the muscles that help pull your legs toward your upper body.
These problems can spell serious trouble for parts of the body beyond your butt, including back pain. That’s why it’s so important to strengthen your rear end. However “Neglecting the glute muscles, combined with a sedentary lifestyle, can lead to complications.
Maybe the sitting problem doesn’t apply to you at work, or you’re one of the 23 percent who gets the recommended amount of weekly exercise. Even if you’re an athlete, a runner, or just an active person, you still need to train your glutes. The problem for most people especially athletes is that their glutes are either not working at all, or are very, very weak. The good news is that glutes are pretty easy to strengthen, provided you know what you are doing.
Let’s get to understand why the glutes are such a big deal even before we know how to work them out.
1. Strong glutes provide hip extension
A hip extension is a movement that occurs when you walk, run or stand so any movement that lengthens the front of your hip is a hip extension. Just as stretching and rolling, hip extension is a really big deal. Powerful hip extension is one of the key qualities that separate great leapers from the vertically challenged. It’s also the bedrock of speed and acceleration. Have you ever seen a great sprinter without great glute development? No. Me neither. The reason for this is that to move forwards we have to push backwards. To push backwards we need strong glutes.
2. Strong glutes keep our motor patterns clean and virus free
Our motor patterns are the software that activates our muscles. In a perfect world this software activates the right muscle at the right time and everything just works. In the real world, most people have faulty software. Generally our software faults are due to the bio-mechanical baggage of compensatory patterns, I think of these as being like computer viruses. Compensatory patterns are basically well intentioned workarounds.
These workarounds typically involve subbing in an inappropriate muscle to do another muscle’s job for it. A very common example is that the athlete’s glutes are not firing properly, the body sensing this creates the workaround of using the groin, or hamstrings to provide hip extension. The problem is that these muscles are now doing a job they were never designed for.
The result is that the body starts to over use the wrong muscles, and develops tightness and weakness in these muscles and maybe even a tear. Often this is then called a groin or hamstring problem; however it’s actually a glute problem with a hamstring or groin symptom. People with great software and strong well-activated glutes are pretty much immune to these problems.
Not only are the glutes your body’s largest, most powerful muscle group, training them will help you improve your posture, minimize back pain, and generate speed and power during exercise and athletic performance.
References:
https://coreadvantage.com.au/blog/2013/3/25/one-muscle-to-rule-them-all-gluteus-maximus
https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-exercise/stronger-glutes-exercises#importance-of-training-glutes
Written By:
Eunice Kabana
