Saturday 2.6.16
Congratulations to Grace and Tom on their 4th place finish this weekend!!
Glutes Galore
by Grace Lin
So by now, in your CrossFit journey, you have probably heard us talk about glutes. Why do we mention our glutes so much? (It’s not because we’re being narcissistic about our butts…) We talk about them so much because they are an extremely powerful and important muscle group that we use every day and in almost every exercise performed at the gym. Here’s a short and sweet breakdown of your glutes:
The Gluteal Muscles, or informally referred to as glutes, are composed of 3 main muscles: gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus.
Gluteus maximus is the largest muscle in the body and gives your butt its roundish shape. It primarily contributes to upper leg extension (i.e., standing up from a squat), deceleration of upper leg flexion (i.e., sitting down) and external rotation.
Gluteus medius is toward the top outer portion of the butt. It contributes to hip extension, lateral rotation and abduction. In addition, it helps prevent adduction (internal rotation) of the hip, especially during walking/running.
Gluteus minimus is the smallest of the 3 gluteal muscles and lies beneath the gluteus medius. It works in conjunction with the glute medius.
We use our glutes every day. They’re recruited when we walk, sit down, stand up, bend over, squat, jump, climb stairs, and the list goes on and on. Because this muscle is so prevalent in our everyday lives, we continuously emphasize proper squat mechanics for proper glute development and to keep your hips and knees safe! We perform many exercises in CrossFit that focus on strengthening the glutes (i.e., all the squats, kettlebell swings, deadlifts), but there are a plethora of accessory exercises that you can also do in your free time before/after class or at home. Here’s a list of some accessory glute exercises:
Barbell hip thrusts
Glute ham raises
Bulgarian split squats
Banded glute bridges
Single leg glute bridges
Side leg raises (with or without a band)
Step ups (body weight, dumbbells, kettlebells)
Lunges of any variation (forward, backward, OH walking)
Hip extensions
Reverse hypers
Seated band abductions
Type any of these exercises into Google, and there should be plenty of video demos. You can also ask any of the coaches at CFCH for help or additional information about any accessory exercises. So go ahead and get working on your peanut!
FOUNDATIONS
10 rounds for time:
4 rope pulls
10 overhead walking lunges (45/25#)
15 box jumps
GPP
10 rounds for time:
2 rope climbs (comp: legless)
10 overhead walking lunges (45/25#) (comp: choose BB weight)
15 box jumps (24/20")
COMPETITION EXTRA WORK
(Pre GPP)
A. Perform for time:
42 calories on the Assault bike
21 thrusters (135/95#)
-rest 5 minutes-
30 calories
15 thrusters (115/75#)
-rest 4 minutes-
18 calories
9 thrusters (95/65#)
-rest 3 minutes-
then,
21-15-9
calories on Assault bike
thrusters (75/55#)