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Glute activation

by Kevin Smith
(Williamston , SC)

I am a high school football coach as well as our speed and strength coach. I started implementing glute activation exercises last year with our kids and have had some pretty good results. The more I research about this topic the more interested I am about it. Does loading the glutes with a horizontal load affect sprinting actions and speeds more than say loading with a vertical load? Meaning that would say a weighted hip thrust do more for speed and say a squat or deadlift do more for vertical jump? Along with this answer what exercises do you recmmend for glute activation? thank you greatly for your help.

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Glute activation

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Dec 21, 2011
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Sprint Training
by: Mitch - MTS

I never said it didn't matter. What I said is that he was over thinking the issue of how the glutes actually work. I agree that glute bridges and any exercise that forces hip extension (i.e. hip thrusts) will improve both sprinting and jumping.

If an athlete is sprinting correctly, their body position is exactly the same as jumping vertically. The only difference is that the entire body is leaning forward, but the hip position relative to the rest of the body is the same whether you are sprinting or jumping.

If there was no carry over from vertical movements to sprinting, then why did Ben Johnson perform 5 sets of 1 rep at 95% of is 1 rep max just moments before stepping on the track and smashing the world record? Why do the best sprinters in the world perform olympic lifting and plyometrics as a large part of their training?

As for the bridge with your feet on a bench, it is fine exercise and you will feel it in your hamstrings more than a flat bridge, but it also isn't training the hamstrings to work at all like they do when you sprint. Too many people think that the hamstrings are a prime mover when sprinting. If the body is working correctly, the hamstrings are only responsible for contracting eccentrically (as they lengthen) to decelerate the lower leg for toe placement just prior to touch down during the running gait.

That's why athletes who injure their hamstrings and try to fix it by performing leg curls continue to re-injure themselves. They are trying to strengthen a muscle in a concentric manner who works almost exclusively in an eccentric manner.

So, while a bridge with the feet on a bench is not a bad exercise and won't necessarily cause damage, the idea that it replicates how the body works during sprinting is just plain wrong.

Dec 09, 2011
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Horizontal loading
by: Anonymous

Why would it not matter? Why would you train an exercise that looks like a jump to train the sprint? For sprinting, do exercises that look like sprinting, and the same for jumping. Hip extension is very crucial, but there is a difference between horizontally loaded hip extension and vertical loaded hip extension. Weighted hip thrusts and glute bridges are phenomenal for sprinting. Read some things that Bret Contreras has to say, he has a lot of good stuff. Once those lifts have progressed, try laying flat on the ground with your feet on a bench. This works the hamstring more than the glutes and works the hamstring in the same movement pattern as sprinting unlike a regular curl. Give them a try.

Nov 24, 2011
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Glute Exercises
by: Mitch - MTS

I applaud your efforts to activate the glutes as they are forgotten in strength programs all over this country, and unfortunately because of our lifestyle they are almost always asleep. This is a shame, because they really are the most explosive muscles in the body.

Activating them can be difficult. Many athletes don't know how to turn them on because they have become so used to compensating to get around using them.

As far as your questions regarding vertical v. horizontal loading, I think you're over thinking it a little bit. For both sprinting and jumping, you simply need hip extension. If your athlete knows how to extend their hips, they will do both well.

When you look at the finish of a good jumper, the body should be in a straight line from their ankles through their heads. Poor jumpers leave their butt out and never get in their hips through. The same can be said of sprinters. Good sprinters should have a straight line from their ankle through their head (on their drive leg) during acceleration. The difference here is that their body should be leaning at a 45 degree angle. The problem with most athletes, however, is that they bend at the waist, again never getting into hip extension.

My favorite exercises for the glutes start at a Hip Flexor stretch. If their Hip Flexors are tight (and most of our athletes are), they can't turn on their glutes because they are always going to lose the tug of war between the front of the hip and the back.

From there, it depends upon what stage our athletes are in. For very basic activation, I do a lot of bridging exercises. Make sure they do something with their upper body to activate their core, otherwise they do all of the bridging at their low back (RKC bridge is a great example if you google it).

Also, any kind of single leg balancing activities will force the glute to fire to stabilize the hip.

From there, it goes on to squatting, lunging, deadlifts, cleans, kettlebell swings, etc. Make sure if they are squatting, their hips much pass below parallel, otherwise it's very likely that the glutes won't turn on. Also, don't be afraid to combine these exercises into combination exercises, adding things like a single leg balance or a hold at a certain spot to increase the difficulty.

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Glute activation

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Glute activation