Hi, I'm Dane, and these are podcasts for Balanced Body.
We're at my studio, North Star Pilates Solutions in Buffalo, New York, and this is Kim.
And today, Kim and I are going to be working on a little bit of a glute strengthening exercise
here.
Now, we've done some other podcasts that have demonstrated lower extremity alignment exercises,
and this falls into that category as well.
This is a great exercise to help kind of get your athlete more aware of the connection
between glute and hamstring.
It's a powerful component in terms of exercises or sports that involve powerful pushing off
with the leg.
So any sprinters, hockey players, any figure skaters, anybody who really needs a powerful
extension of the hip, this is a great exercise to kind of make them aware of that posterior
glute and hip connection.
It's also a really neat exercise to sort of work on alignment of the lower extremity
in a weight-bearing position.
So anybody that has any patello femoral issues, any tracking issues of femur, any tracking
issues of patella, any alignment issues of knee and ankle, really works well to help
get them more aware of those particular positionings.
So what I'm going to have Kim do is come down onto hands and knees for me.
So we're going to start on hands and knees, right?
So in terms of alignment, you kind of want the person to be close enough to the bar so
that they feel secure, but not so far underneath it that they're feeling sardine can or scrunched
up.
So from here, I'm going to have Kim lower down onto her elbows, good.
So what that does now, it just promotes a slight downward angle of the spine, and that
helps to get a little bit more connection into glute and hips without tapping into too
much lumbar spine.
So head is down just a bit and aligned with the rest of the spine, and we want to really
emphasize the connection of abdominals to make sure that the lift is not coming from
lumbar spine, but coming from the extension of the hip.
So I'm going to have Kim bring her left heel, excuse me, her right heel onto the pedal, onto
the bar, good.
So from here, the movement is inhaling to prepare.
As she exhales, she's going to maintain that abdominal stability and press the heel up
to the ceiling.
So pause right there.
So we're stopping at a slight bend of the knee just to make sure she has that awareness
of keeping the hips under control, and that the movement is coming from the hip with the
glute activation and the hamstrings working.
Bend the knee just to the point before the spring dies, exhale and press up again.
Good, working from that hip, lengthening through the leg, inhale and bend.
Now I'm going to have her go into full extension of the leg.
So go ahead and press up all the way, reaching nice and long, and what you may see is a little
bit of opening of the pelvis.
If her pelvis rotates and opens to the side of the leg that's working, that's okay, because
we want a little bit of hip rotation to allow that maximal glute contraction.
Inhale and bend the knee, and exhale and press again, just making sure that she's keeping
that nice stability of center, beautiful, that's it, inhale and bend.
Last time for me here, exhale and squeeze that glute all the way and keep that connection
even when the leg is straight.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, good, and bend the knee, and bring that leg back
down and pause right there.
So we can also do a variation in external rotation of the hips.
So what I'm going to have Kim do is maintaining that same position, head down, and spine nice
and neutral for me here.
I'm going to have her bring that right heel back onto the bar, good, and now we're going
to have her swing the knee out into a little bit of external hip rotation.
So you want to make sure that the pelvis doesn't shift way over to the opposite side, that
it's more rotation at the right hip.
So inhale for me here, exhale and extend that right leg up to the ceiling, keeping that
slight turnout, good, and you may get a little bit more opening of the hip and pelvis and
that's fine.
Inhale and bend, but as she bends, we want to keep that knee and hip rotated out.
Exhale and press, reach along as you can through that heel, abdominal stay connected, strong
contraction through glute and lower.
Last time for me here, exhale, draw those abdominals and work through the glute, lengthen through
that heel, good, and come on down, and you can bring that knee down for me here.
And just a note on safety, you can come on up Kim, thank you very much.
Just a note on safety, whenever the bar is sprung from below, you always want to make
sure that again, you're using your safety strap, just to make sure that if the person's
foot slips off the bar, which can often do in this movement, that that bar will be protected
from hitting, that the person will be protected from the bar hitting them.
Also another way to cue this is just keep a hand on the bar and one hand on the body
part you need to cue, just to make sure the bar is under control and that the person is
in the alignment you need them to be in.
So this is prone hip extension with the tower bar, great exercise for getting that glute,
hip, and hamstring connection as well as lengthening through the spine.
Thanks for watching and I hope you enjoy.
