Strong glutes for the 'horsepower' factor

Kelly Baggett is an Arizona-based "performance consultant" who specialises in "increasing raw explosiveness, acceleration and jumping ability." In an article on his site Higher-Faster-Sports.com titled "The plague of the mediocre athlete; no glutes equals no results," he claims that the main difference between average and good athletes is in "the functionality of the feet, as well as the strength, development, and function of the glute musculature."

Baggett argues that the glutes are mainly responsible for the 'horsepower' factor and does not believe that an athlete can have too much glute strength. He maintains that "due to their natural strength and the leverage advantage they have over your legs, the glutes should always be the primary muscles that drive lower body movement.

Inhibited glutes and overshadowed glutes

In extreme cases the glutes may be inhibited to the extent that they don't contract when walking, standing or even playing sport, but the more common problem for the athlete is having "overshadowed glutes":

Here the glutes DO fire correctly, but are not as strong as other lower body muscles (like the quadriceps), thus the body will use other muscles to do what the glutes SHOULD be doing, resulting in inefficient
performance and often some type of pain or injury over the long haul. Whenever you perform a movement such as a squat, lunge, deadlift, jump, sprint, or any exercise that involves several different muscle groups, the majority of work will tend to be done by the strongest of those muscle groups.

People who don't have superior glute activation patterns and whose glutes are not naturally stronger than their thighs perform exercises in the weightroom that should be strengthening their glutes but typically end up with most of the strengthening occurring in the thigh muscles. Then "when you throw them into an athletic environment the body will naturally use the strongest muscles to control movements, so now their quads and other muscles will want to do what the glutes should be doing." People who tend to easily develop massive quadriceps are usually not very impressive athletically:

A person with overly developed quadriceps and lack of hamstring and glute development will tend to be a heel to toe runner and have trouble gliding, planting, and getting off on the balls of their feet. ... Even if the posterior chain is developed, in someone that has massive quadricep development, they will still struggle with ideal movement patterns because their body will try to do things that favor the stronger muscle groups.

Extensor dominant movement for speed

In another article, "Squats and speed development?" Baggett suggests that blazing speed derives from "extensor dominant movement." He advises:

for speed development you get away from focusing on exercises where you "bend your knees" and focus on exercises where you extend your hips. So, get away from squatting and focus on extending, where the focus is high RPM strength, which I truly believe a person can never have enough of. That means everything on the backside of your body becomes more important.

Hip-joint-specific strength apparatus

MyoQuip's latest release, the MyoHip, provides a biomechanically efficient means of exercising and strengthening the hip extensors - glutes and hamstrings - without activating the knee extensors. In addition it is very effective in strengthening and enhancing the functionality of the hip flexors, which are the antagonists of the hip extensors.

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MyoQuip launches the HipneeFlex - hip and knee flexor strength builder

After extensive prototype testing, MyoQuip is proud to release the HipneeFlex, a truly unique apparatus for the development of the hip and knee flexors.

The HipneeFlex permits the hip flexor and knee flexor muscles to be exercised simultaneously through the full range of leg movement from full extension to full flexion. Both sets of muscles are subjected to substantial but appropriate loading throughout the whole movement.

Figure 1 shows the basic mechanism of the HipneeFlex. The athlete operates from a supine position so that the action of the flexors - iliopsoas and hamstrings for the hip and knee joints respectively - can be effectively isolated. The feet are engaged between rollers which are cable-connected to the weighted QuadTorq mechanism.

The exercise movement involves the feet being drawn back from a fully extended position to a fully flexed position. Thus both hip and knee flexors are exercised through a range where the included angle at the joints varies from 180º to around 30º.

The arc through which the foot engagement device moves is designed to closely parallel the path that the feet would normally traverse if drawn back without resistance. It also creates a natural tendency for the two joint angles to vary synchronously so that they are both under continual load.

Biomechanical correspondence In going from full extension to full flexion the limb joints are moving towards a progressively inferior biomechanical orientation and consequently, less capacity to handle load.In view of this the QuadTorq mechanism for the HipneeFlex is configured for decreasing resistance. (This is opposite to MyoQuip's other machines, the ScrumTruk, JumpTruk and HipneeThrust. Because they involve limb extension rather than limb flexion their QuadTorq orientation is for increasing resistance.)

Hamstring development It could be argued that other exercises and apparatus cater adequately for hamstring development. For example, in their role as hip flexors, they are strongly activated in whole-leg extensor movements such as the barbell squat. But with regard to their other function as knee flexors the most commonly used apparatus, the leg curl machine, doesn't usually involve knee joint closure much below 90º and it is also a simple single-joint exercise. By contrast, many of the important sporting activities involving the knee flexor, such as sprinting, cycling or rowing, produce acute joint angles and also require complex coordination between the hamstrings and iliopsoas. The HipneeFlex is the only strength apparatus that effectively simulates that coordination.

Hip flexor strength and sport The most widely recognised sport-related function of the iliopsoas is in enhancing knee lift in sprinting. They also play a vital role in football kicking, swim kicking and sports such as rowing.

Iliopsoas strengthening has specific performance implications for cycling which involves continuous though offsetting leg extension and flexion. Enhanced hip flexor capacity has particular relevance to the cycling upstroke where both hip and knee joints are flexing. Concentration on using the hip flexors takes load off the hamstrings, the most overworked muscles in cycling.

Cross country skiing is particularly taxing on the hip flexors, as are other activities involving vertical movement of the body such as cross country running and mountain climbing.

Some of the more athletic forms of dance necessitate very strong hip flexors.

More generally, in any sporting activities requiring hip joint extension, the hip flexors perform a crucial antagonist function.

Tight hip flexors are recognised as contributing to lower back pain by causing the pelvis to tip forward. Full range activation of the iliopsoas through use of the HipneeFlex can be expected to have a beneficial effect on flexor flexibility.

Hip flexor development Until now the hip flexors have been the most neglected muscle group in strength training. Now with the release of the HipneeFlex there is a machine that has significant specificity to natural movement of these muscles, that involves their full range activation and that has a high degree of biomechanical correspondence between effective load and load-bearing capacity of those muscles at a particular limb position.

Athletes and their coaches constantly seek minor improvements that could conceivably give them a competitive edge. Here we have an apparatus that can safely and effectively strengthen a muscle group that is intrinsically involved in many athletic and sporting activities but which is virtually never developed to its full potential.

No one really knows the extent of the benefits that will flow from eliminating that imbalance.



We invite you to be one of the first to explore the potential of really strong hip flexors. Alternatively, you can wait and then play "catch-up" with the rest of the herd.

If you are located outside Australia please use the email link in the sidebar to obtain a quotation in your own currency including shipment options.

(See also my previous post, Hip flexors - the most underdeveloped muscle group in strength training.)
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Comment by Nick Tatalias on hip flexor strength

A comment by Nick Tatalias on my "Hip Flexor" post contains such significant observations and extensions to my arguments that I felt it deserved highlighting. It is by no means the first time that Nick has materially expanded on one of my posts. Here is an excerpt from the comment:

... hip flexor strength is essential to athletic function simply because the body will begin to retard the agonist action early if the antagonist is weak. This reaction of the body prevents injury by preventing over extension. Strong antagonists allow the agonist to fire for much longer before the antagonist must fire to prevent joint over extension. The early retardation will slow the movement restrict range of motion and will cause slower runners. If the Weyland study is correct in its assertion that overall speed is dependant on ground forces generated and range of motion (as these two functions increase stride length) and not leg speed then by deduction if cycle times remain constant but stride length increase then speed must increase ...

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Hip flexors - the most underdeveloped muscle group in strength training

[Summary: Strong hip flexors provide an advantage in a wide range of sports and athletic activities but they are the most neglected muscle group in strength training. The problem in developing hip flexor strength has been the lack of appropriate exercises, but the development of flexor-specific apparatus offers great potential for fully developing these muscles.]

Despite their importance to a wide range of athletic and sporting activities, the hip flexors are the most neglected major muscle group in strength training. It is very rare to find training programs that include hip flexor exercises. By contrast there is usually a great deal of emphasis on exercises for the leg extensors.



There are some obvious reasons for this comparative neglect. The principal muscles involved in hip flexion are the psoas and the iliacus, collectively known as the iliopsoas. Because they are relatively deep-seated rather than surface muscles they may have been overlooked by bodybuilders who have traditionally been the major innovators in strength training. Secondly, there are no obvious ways to adequately exercise them with free weights. Finally, these muscles do not have the obvious functional importance of their extensor counterparts. Yet, as antagonists, both hip and knee flexors perform a vital role in controlling the rate of descent and ascent in leg extension exercises such as the squat.

There is no corresponding problem of underdevelopment with the muscles responsible for knee joint flexion, the hamstring group. Because they cross two joints they are active in both leg extension and leg flexion. They act to flex the knee joint and also to extend the hip joint. Therefore they tend to be strengthened by complex leg extension exercises. Also hamstrings can be developed and strengthened through the use of the leg curl apparatus.

Strong hip flexors provide an advantage in a wide range of sports and athletic activities. In sprinting high knee lift is associated with increased stride length and therefore considerable attention is given to exercising the hip flexors. However, they are usually not exercised against resistance and consequently there is unlikely to be any appreciable strength increase.

Hip flexor strength is directly relevant to a range of activities in football. Kicking a ball is a complex coordinated action involving simultaneous knee extension and hip flexion, so developing a more powerful kick requires exercises applicable to these muscle groups. Strong hip flexors can also be very advantageous in the tackle situation in American football and both rugby union and rugby league where a player is attempting to take further steps forward with an opposing player clinging to his legs.

In addition those players in American football and rugby who have massively developed quadriceps and gluteus muscles are often unable to generate rapid knee lift and hence tend to shuffle around the field. Having stronger flexors would significantly improve their mobility.

It is commonly asserted that marked strength disparity between hip extensors and hip flexors may be a contributing factor in hamstring injuries in footballers. It is interesting to speculate on whether hip extensor/flexor imbalance might also be associated with the relatively high incidence of groin injuries.

Other sports where increased iliopsoas strength would appear to offer benefits include cycling, rowing and mountain climbing, in particular when scaling rock faces.

The problem in developing hip flexor strength has been the lack of appropriate exercises. Two that have traditionally been used for this muscle group are incline sit-ups and hanging leg raises, but in both cases the resistance is basically provided by the exerciser's own body weight. As a consequence these exercises can make only a very limited contribution to actually strengthening the flexors.

Until now the only weighted resistance equipment employed for this purpose has been the multi-hip type machine. When using this multi-function apparatus for hip flexion the exerciser pushes with the lower thigh against a padded roller which swings in an arc. One difficulty with this apparatus is that the position of the hip joint is not fixed and thus it is difficult to maintain correct form when using heavy weights or lifting the thigh above the horizontal.

With the release of the MyoQuip HipneeFlex there is now a machine specifically designed to develop and strengthen the leg flexors. It exercises both hip and knee flexors simultaneously from full extension to full flexion. Because the biomechanical efficiency of these joints decreases in moving from extension to flexion, the mechanism is configured to provide decreasing resistance throughout the exercise movement and thus appropriate loading to both sets of flexors.

The absence until now of effective techniques for developing the hip flexors means that we do not really know what benefits would flow from their full development. However, given that in elite sport comparatively minor performance improvements can translate into contest supremacy, it is an area that offers great potential.

(See also my follow-up postMyoQuip launches the HipneeFlex - hip and knee flexor strength builder.)
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