Day 13: Hips/Glutes
We cannot talk about cardio without talking about hips and glutes.
We spend a lot of time sitting and as we sit, our glute muscle stretches out for long periods of time and our hip flexors get shortened and super tight creating a major muscle imbalance. So, we must stretch the hips and strengthen the glutes in order to restore proper balance to the body. We need those glutes to activate properly when we walk!
This hip tightness and glute weakness becomes a real problem when we start doing cardio. If we don’t balance out the two, eventually our bodies become misaligned. This means that our bones don’t sit comfortably in the joint socket and instead, it can cause grinding of bone on bone, which can lead to the wearing down of the hip socket, especially when we put repeated pressure on it through walking or running. Biking (or spinning) is another problem, it’s cardio but in a seated position and it stretches out the glutes even more, exacerbating this postural structure. I personally believe that this is a major contributor to why so many folks require hip replacements as well as knee replacements- because when the hip is misaligned, it affects the entire structure of the body and the leg in particular.
So, today we are going to practice hips and glutes prep for cardio. We are going to make sure we stretch out those hip flexors and strengthen the glute and hamstring muscles, to try to create better alignment in that area of the body.
Beginner: Watch and practice the hip and glutes video from Level 1
Intermediate:
Foam Roll Quads, Calves and Glutes
Advanced:
Foam Roll Quads, Calves and Glutes
These stretches and exercises are essential in the toolbox of cardio prep, because they strengthen and stretch all the leg muscles, making them stronger, more flexible and more mobile.
Please continue to:
Post on Facebook or share with me! :How do these exercises all feel to you?