Muscle Fitness Muscle & Fitness UK - April 2018 | Page 76

HERS
lazy. Sitting for many hours a day has
shortened our hip flexors, caused
mobility problems and can compress
the gluteus maximus making them for
most people, somewhat dormant
unless we specifically target them.
You will often hear people talk about
getting a ‘mind muscle connection’
with your glutes to ensure they are
firing up and you are performing an
exercise effectively, but what does that
really mean and how do we get it?
A mind muscle connection is when a
signal is sent by our brain to a muscle
group telling them to contract. The
stronger you can get this connection,
the more muscle fibers you are going
to recruit into the movement. There-
fore, you will actually feel the muscle
working rather than just going through
the motions. If you struggle to feel
your glutes working then one effective
way I have found to improve glute
engagement is by doing activation
work. Exercises such as bodyweight
glute bridges, single leg hip thrusts,
banded kickbacks and frog pumps are
a great way of isolating the muscle
group and getting them to work
instead of your quads or hamstrings
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MUSCLE & FITNESS / APRIL 2018
taking over. Once you have started to
engage your glutes more you will
notice that your training will become
more effective.
Our glutes need to be subjected to
stimulation to adapt and grow so it’s
important to lift heavy as well as do
activation work. We can only build