Many times people incorrectly substitute back extension movements when they should be doing hip extension. When the hips extend the fulcrum of the movement is located between the thigh in the back. This motion activates the gluteals effectively.

This machine above is often used as a back extension. In reality, many people would benefit using this as a HIP extension, with the pad being placed at the top of the thigh and not at teh waist where you will recruit your spinal erectors more.

In this case, however, my patient needed help isolating hip extension (a glute dominant movement) while maintaining a neutral spine. Actually, you can hear me here cueing a neutral spine in this movement as he comes up.

A neutral spine cue allows for only the extensors of the hip to raise the body up. With this being the case, he can now progress the load and volume of the exercise by adding weight, increasing the reps or concentrating on only certain parts of the motion to activate the glutes and in more challenging fashions.

After these cues and practice, he was able to properly activate his glutes and begin the process of decreasing the reliance on the lumbar erectors in squatting and deadlifting. In fact, right after this exercise we got to the squat rack where her noticed a substantial change in his ability to complete the exercise and feel his back less and hips and glutes more.

A success!

Want to activate your glutes better and improve your deadlifts or squats? Message me and we can set up a plan for you!