It's almost impossible for me to write a post about glutes that does not, in some way, reference Sir Mix A Lot:

"Oh my God Becky, look at her butt. It is so big..."

Every time this song comes on the gym, all of the over 35ers stop whatever they're doing to get their groove on. 

Everyone else just watches.

Working on the glute muscles is more than just impressing Becky and her friend though. The glutes are responsible for stabilizing the pelvis and can help promote back health. Here are a few exercises that you can incorporate into your workouts on a weekly basis to help build the kind of butt you can bounce a quarter off of. 

If you really want to know everything there is to know about glutes, you want to check out this guy - Bret Contreras, also known as the Glute Guy.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites.

Cable pull throughs

Everyone loves doing these in public. And I mean everyone. This is one of the best from the awkward exercise selection, but in all honesty is one of the best for you. 

Key coaching cue: Use your hips, not your hands. Keep your spine straight throughout the movement and squeeze those cheeks at the top like you're cracking a walnut.

Monster walks

This is an easy exercise to rush through, so be sure to take your time with them. Start with a lighter band around your knees.

Key coaching cue: The focus here is not stepping forward but loading your weight into the planted leg and lifting the working leg, which makes the movement look more like a Frankenstein walk (hence the name) than a traditional walk.

1-legged hip thrusts

Chances are if you try this one out, you're going to hate it. If you hate it, do more of it. No, not because I'm a sadist, but because it's really good for you. 

Key coaching cue: Maintain a straight spine throughout the exercise, not letting your butt sag throughout the movement. 

I grew up on Saturday Night Live in the 90's - Dana Carvey, Al Franken and of course, Adam Sandler. 

But one of my favorite skits of all time was with Dana Carvey's Church Lady:

Well as it turns out, I've had plenty of cause to reference that character lately when teaching clients a good way to stretch their hip flexors. 

Check the video out below for more. 

And don't forget that beginning in March, there will be some free Facebook Live videos coming from my Facebook page, so if you haven't liked me but want to like me, you know, that would be cool. :)

Sometimes as fitness professionals, we train a new client on a Monday and then Wednesday watch them shuffle back through the door for another session.

“How are you feeling?” We ask this with a little glint in our eye.

“I ripped the toilet paper dispenser out of the wall trying to get off the toilet yesterday,” they say. "Other than that, amazing."

The sarcasm is thick, and we chuckle a little.

“I’m billing you for the repairs.”

I have no statistical proof, but dressing like Jane Fonda may also help reduce soreness. 

We chuckle less. 

That soreness that you experience is known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). This type of soreness is different from acute soreness, which is pain that develops during the actual activity. Delayed soreness doesn't hit you for the first few hours. It's the next few days that has you cursing a blue streak every time you go down stairs or get up from your chair. 

If you want to add a little science to the sauce, soreness develops as a result of microscopic damage to the muscle fibers involved in the exercise. DOMS is a side effect of the repair process that develops in response to microscopic muscle damage. 

This soreness isn't limited to folks who are new to working out. I've taken the last 10 days off of lifting and decided to celebrate my Thanksgiving Day with a two-hour workout that included clusters of squats. 

All you need to know is that clusters of squats after a few weeks out of the gym was a bad idea. Because walking. 

You are bound to have some soreness when you start a new workout program, but there are a few things you can do to help reduce the soreness after. 

1. Ease into the routine

If you’ve been relatively static for a long time and then someone drags you to an hour-long advanced spin class, you can be sure that you’ll have to roll out of bed the next morning. In my case, I could have gone with four sets of five squats instead of four sets of 20 squats.

That was stupid. I knew better.

And now today I'm going to go cut down a Christmas tree and scream my lungs out trying to get up from the ground. As Sheila tells me often, this fitness thing is going to kill me.  

If you've got a program that calls for four sets of nine different exercises, start with two sets on day one. By the end of the week you'll be ready to add that third set. Allowing your muscles time to adapt to the new stresses can reduce the severity of the soreness you experience in the days following. And the best news is that once you get through that first bout of soreness from those squats, you'll not experience that level of discomfort from DOMS again, until you take another long break from lifting.

Don't take those long breaks if you can help it.  

2. Move

I played volleyball in high school, and we would start the season in August by practicing from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The next morning involved rolling out of bed and army crawling my way to the bathroom. It always seemed impossible to think I was going to manage another day of practice. But miraculously, as we groaned our way through the warm up laps, we felt better. 

The last thing you want to do when you are sore is actually move. But some gentle stretching and light walking will actually help you feel better. When muscles are in recovery mode they tend to tighten up which is only going to make you feel more sore.

3. Light foam rolling or massage and ibuprofen

My legs were so upset with me yesterday that even foam rolling was out of the question. But what I did do was use the tiger stick very lightly on my quads and hamstrings. Again, it's about keeping the blood flowing to the muscles to keep them from getting too tight.

And if all else fails, a low dose of ibuprofen can help take the edge off. Trust me, I'll be using my tiger stick and then taking some ibuprofen before Sheila drags me all over a rainy Christmas tree farm to cut down our tree.

AND....

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