***REMINDER – Don’t forget about Saturday’s one-year anniversary party from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Please RSVP to info@crossfitinvictus.com.***
Workout of the Day:
Deadlift – Find your new one-rep max in five attempts or less.
(Maintain perfect posture and mechanics throughout the lift, or the lift does not count.)
and then,
For max reps:
45 seconds of Deadlift (use 70% of today’s 1-RM)
45 seconds of Rest
45 seconds of Handstand Push-Ups
45 seconds of Rest
30 seconds of Deadlift
30 seconds of Rest
30 seconds of Handstand Push-Ups
30 seconds of Rest
15 seconds of Deadlift
15 seconds of Rest
15 seconds of Handstand Push-Ups
and then,
Complete 100 Double-Unders for time.
Wake Your Butt Up – Part One
Written by Mark Riebel
Most of us are aware of our rear ends — the two cheeks we walk around with filling out our jeans and giving us a comfortable area on which to sit every day at work. But the attractive factor and a mobile seat are far from what your butt is actually for. Your glutes (the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus) don’t exist just to shake on the dance floor, they are prime movers of your hips and legs, and often a lot of athletes in our gym just plain don’t know how to use them to their advantage. In this post I want to focus on your glute max, the big powerhouse that makes up most of the mass in your backside.
Your gluteus maximus is primarily an extender of the hip, a key piece of any clean, squat, jump or any other movement where you move from a flexed-hip position to a more open one. But here’s the deal, while all of these movements require the glutes to really work, due to years of movement without proper recruitment of the those muscles, you can end up over-using some of your other muscles which severely limits your progress. Think relying on your spinal erectors for a deadlift or heavily on your quads for a squat—your glute max is one of the strongest muscles in your body, so you’re doing yourself a disservice to not use both of them properly. If you or any of your training partners have that little “butt shimmy” when they come up on a squat, poor glute recruitment could be to blame. But fear not! After a few sessions of some simple exercises, you can help your glutes to remember just what they are there to do. These exercises are also easily increased in difficulty if you’re looking for a bit more of a challenge.
Your coaches will typically give you some glute activation exercises during warm-ups on days involving hip extension movements, but there’s a few that I recommend doing on a more regular basis, particularly if you think you may be suffering from “gluteal amnesia,” and especially in warm-ups on those days when you’ll need them in the workout.
Hip Bridges
We’ve done these weighted before, but for just patterning and learning how to get the hip extension down, go with un-weighted. Lay on your back with your feet on the floor and knees bent at about 90 degrees. (See photo above.) Keeping your weight on your shoulders and feet, squeeze your glutes together to bridge up and extend your hip fully. (See photo below.) Hold for about a second and then relax. Do three sets of ten to twenty reps on these. This entry-level version isn’t to build strength, but to remind your glutes what they do for a living.
Fire Hydrants
Get on your hands and knees with a neutral spine.
Keeping the knee and hip flexed, raise your right knee out to the side of you, avoiding excessive twisting of the spine and pelvis to increase the range of motion.
From this position, fully extend the right leg behind you, raising it higher than the level of your back, and really feeling the squeeze in your glute.
Do three sets of ten to twenty on each leg in a slow and controlled manner.
Again, doing these on a regular basis will give the best benefit of retraining your glutes to do what they’re supposed to. Next time, I’ll discuss some simple modifications to make these exercises more challenging to help further develop hip extension strength.
