Are we “Activating Glutes” or just teaching people how to move?


One thing I‘ll almost always do with beginners is teach bridging during the movement prep portion of our program.
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Very often when discussing this coaches will refer to this as “glute activation” however this is a term I have done away with as I feel like it creates an inaccurate description of what is going on.
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The term “glute activation” implies that your ass is like a light switch and that your glutes could be turned “on” or “off.” Now of course we know that’s not the case. Your glutes work just fine however I find the value of motor control drills like bridging is to teach sequencing and joint disassociation.
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If we want to define corrective exercise (another term I don’t really like) as simply as possible it’s that we are teaching people to move the right joints, using the right muscles at the right time. In the example of the bridge: How to extend your hip without overextending your spine and pelvis.
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With the bridge, when we prioritize rib and pelvic alignment with a preceding breath it allows the client to create stiffness through the abdominals and extend the hips using primarily the hamstrings and glutes rather than the spinal extensors.
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I think it is extremely valuable especially with beginners to spend a little bit of time doing low level motor control drills preceding training. This gives them an opportunity to orient themselves with their own body and feel muscles and positions we want to reference during training. However I propose we do away with the terms “Activation” and “Corrective Exercise” in favor of sequencing, positioning and motor control drills.
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And most importantly after all of this prep work, don’t forget to actually train.