My 5-Day Glute Transformation Experiment
Today I'm going to show you how you can
increase your glute muscle activity in the squat by up to almost 40% in just
five days using a simple technique. And why do we want to get the glutes involved more in the squat—or any other lower body
dominant movement, for that matter? Well, the answer is simple: The glutes
are the biggest muscles in our bodies. So, when we use them effectively,
we potentially unlock huge, untapped power. The glutes also protect our
smaller muscles, such as the hamstrings, from injury. They even have
far-reaching effects down at our feet, helping us to control our foot arches, as I've
explained in other uploads on this channel. So, to get this video started I'm going
to first present the science relating to how this one muscular restriction can cause
the glutes to lose their ability to activate, followed by a practical and effective way to
overcome this issue and get them active again. So, let's started. The first thing one needs to understand is
how the muscles in our body work together to facilitate movement through our joints.
Basically, to successfully move through a joint in the body, the muscles on one side
of the joint must contract and shorten, causing the muscles on the other
side to relax and lengthen. This is called "reciprocal inhibition."
The body does this in order to prevent opposing muscles from competing with
each other and hampering movement.
The simplest example of this is when the
bicep contracts and shortens on one side of the upper arm, while the tricep relaxes
and lengthens on the opposite side, allowing fluid movement to occur through the elbow joint.
So, let's translate this phenomenon of reciprocal inhibition to the workings of the glutes, which
play the primary role of extending the hips, the motion we use to stand up from a squat,
pick something up from the ground, run, jump, etc. In order to do this, the glutes on the one
side of the hip joints need to contract, while the hip flexors on the opposite side lengthen. In
this way the hips can freely and fluidly extend. But, obviously, our bodies don't
always work the way they should, especially when it comes to the hips.
In
particular, all the sitting we do nowadays places the hips in a chronic state of flexion.
To hold this shape for hours upon hours a day, the hip flexors must shorten. And because
we sit day in and day out, the hip flexors eventually adapt to this shortened position.
This process is known as adaptive shortening. Herein lies the issue. Adaptively short
hip flexors can't lengthen properly and will just build up stretch tension as
the glutes attempt to extend the hips, such as in the case of standing up out of a squat.
This tension is then perceived by the body as a muscle contraction, which then sends a message
back to the glutes: "Hey slow down there, you're causing a major stretch on this side!" The glutes,
of course, obey by reducing their activity. This is called altered reciprocal inhibition,
or, as I call it, "wonky reciprocal inhibition." Okay, so if tight hip flexors cause the glutes
to shut down, then wouldn't we just be unable to extend the hips altogether? Well, this
can happen in extreme cases.
We see it in elderly people who have left this issue unattended
for many years. Eventually, they can't stand up straight anymore and actually walk bent
over permanently, in partial hip flexion. To see just how much glute activity is
affected by tight hip flexors in the squat, let's consider a study published just
a few years ago in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy
on female college soccer players. The researchers separated 40 of these
girls into two groups of 20 each. The one group consisted of athletes
who presented with tight hip flexors and the other with participants
who had normal hip mobility. The average difference in hip extension between
groups was 32.4º, which is pretty substantial. Each of the girl's glutes were then tracked
during the squat.
And once the data was collected, the average for each group was analyzed. The results were pretty mind blowing.
The group with tight hip flexors had an average of 40% lower glute activity
than the group with normal hip mobility. These significant findings clearly show us what
a major difference tight hip flexors can make to the extent to which we can
use our glutes during the squat. So now I wanted to figure out a fix for
this problem. My thought process was simple: I figured that if I could mobilize
the hips and lengthen the hip flexors, perhaps I could reduce the effects of
altered reciprocal inhibition and, thus, get improved glute activation
in the squat as a side effect.
But in order to quantify this, I needed
some test subjects. So, five of my family members in an age range of 26–50 graciously
volunteered to participate in this study. I also needed an instrument to accurately
test the glute muscle activity. I was able to do this using Myontec Mshorts 3. These are
basically high-tech smart shorts with in-built EMG sensors that can test muscle activity in the
hamstrings, quads and glutes at the same time. I'll explain a little more about
these high-tech shorts later. Each volunteer was taken to the local gym and
asked to walk for 5 minutes on a self-propelled assault runner treadmill as a warm up. Then,
after a 2-minute rest, they were asked to do 20 consecutive goblet squats with a 14kg kettlebell.
The squats were performed at a consistent tempo with the goal of breaking parallel on each rep.
Muscle activity data was recorded in real time using the Myontec muscle monitor software.
These initial squat results formed the baseline. I then got each participant to do a basic
hip flexor stretch for 5 minutes on each hip, two times a day for five days. This meant that
they spent a total of 20 minutes stretching their hip flexors each day for five days, after which
I re-tested them in the squat using exactly the same method as the baseline tests to see if any
improvements in glute activation could be made.
And these were our results, from the
smallest to greatest improvements: Participant 1 showed a 9.8%
decrease in glute activition Participant 2 a 10.7% increase Participant 3 a 19.8% increase
Participant 4 a 27.8% increase And participant 5 showed
a whopping 38.1% increase. So, despite participant 1 not showing any
enhancement, that's still an average of 17.3% improvement in glute muscle activity in the squat
after only five days of hip flexor stretches. While this was only a pilot study, with various
limitations and improvements that can be made to it, I am still super excited about these
results. They support my hypothesis that hip flexor stretches can help to get the glutes
more active. And for only 1h and 40 minutes of accumulative hip mobility work over the five
days, a 17% average improvement was certainly a great return on their investment.
I also think
that when we combine hip stretches with a glute re-education and strengthening protocol,
like the one we are currently developing, then we will see insane results in future tests.
So, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter down in the description to get alerted as soon as we have
the program and our long-term test data posted. I also want to give a big thanks to Myontec for
supplying us with these state-of-the-art smart shorts. Without them, we wouldn't have
been able to conduct this internal study with such ease and accuracy. As a little
add-on, check out this screenshot we recorded of a 20-minute run using the smart shorts
and their companion mobile application. Immediately after the run I was able analyze the
data to identify that this athlete's left glute was working 2.7 times harder than his right glute.
And then, to compensate for his underactive right glute, his right hamstring was having to put
in 25% extra work compared to the left side. So, with one straightforward test using a pair
of shorts and connecting them to my mobile phone, I'm now able to recommend that he dedicate
some focused attention to his right glute in order to balance the two sides of his
body.
That's incredibly powerful. I'm just blown away by how simple and
easy it was to access this data. So, if you are a sports scientist
like me, a coach, or just a curious athlete who wants to know exactly
what your muscles are doing when you train, check out the links to the Myontec
Mshorts 3 down in the description below, together with a discount code that
the company provided for our viewers. Anyway, if you found this video
educational, you know what to do. See you in the next one.
Cheers!
