Interesting new piece in TMuscle this morning:  basically, we've been training the glutes all wrong.  Seeing as how half the population (that would be women) get into strength training to tighten up the glutes and the other half (that would be the guys) get into it to lift big weights--a function of glute strength, among other things--this piece should probably be of interest to just about everyone.

There are a couple of take-home points from the article:  first, that squats and deadifts, which the author, Bret Contreras (who may be to the glutes what Stuart McGill is to the spine) claims mimic a vertical jumping movement, are lousy at recruiting the glutes.  Nope, in order to really fry the muscles in what an old trainer of mine used to call "The Big House," you've got to hyperextend your hips with the knees bent, using movements that mimic sprinting.

Okay:  what does that mean?  Stand erect.  Your hips are extended.  Now shift your weight onto your right foot and push the heel of your left foot back behind you as far as you can while remaining upright.  Now your left hip is hyperextended, which, the author assures us, is completely safe (I hope it is; I do it every time I take a step!). Hyperextending the hips under load with the knees bent--as in the glute bridge--is the key to a great glute movement:

If you studied glute activation like I have, you'd be blown away by the data. Most individual's glutes contract harder during bodyweight glute activation exercises than from one-rep max squats and deadlifts.

This isn't due to the fact that the individuals don't know how to use their glutes or don't adhere to proper exercise form. It's due to the fact that biomechanically the glutes aren't maximally involved in squatting, lunging, and deadlifting. They're only maximally contracted from bent leg hip hyperextension exercises.

When you picture a squat and a deadlift, you realize that, once your hips reach extension, the glutes aren't working any more.  Try it:  stand up, and palpate your glutes (subtly, if you're in public).  If you're like most people, they're soft as marshmallows, even if you can deadlift half a ton.  The glutes just don't need to work much to keep you upright.  But in the glute bridge, they're working harder and harder as the hips approach and then pass full extension. 

Upshot:  variations on glute bridges--including a loaded barbell version in which Contreras uses over 400 pounds!--are good.  There's more to it, of course, including some cool research cited to support the author's points.

Personally, I've long been puzzled by the glutes.  Yes, they're big and strong--the biggest and the strongest in the body, supposedly--but much of the time they seem bored.  You often have to do all kinds of weird contortions to get the things jumping, or else they literally just sit around, yawning and getting fatter. 

Part of the phenomenon is explained by the sitting epidemic:  sitting shortens the hip flexors, which lead to inhibited glutes. 

But I think the problem, in light of this author's findings, also stems from the fact that life just doesn't ask us to do movements which stimulate the glutes much.  We just don't have much call to hyperextend the hips these days.  Sprinters, the author notes, tend to have strong glutes, and indeed, their movement of expertise--horizontal propulsion--is precisely what activates the glutes maximally.  Back on the plains of the Savannah, your ancestors and mine did a lot of sprinting to round up dinner and to avoid becoming dinner to something bigger and stronger.  But these days?  Not so much. 

So if you want great glutes, and you can tolerate it, do some sprinting, too.  

Someday, when I have all the time in the world, I'll study evolutionary biology and see if I can work out whether our evolution from four-footed creatures accounts in some part for our relatively large glutes.  After all, the glutes are way more active in crawling than in walking.