Benefits of strong glutes and hamstrings
Your glutes and hamstrings are the largest and strongest muscle in the body, even larger than your quadriceps, giving your body huge calorie burning potential if we focus on this area, yet we neglect this muscle group tremendously and focus on other areas – making things unnecessarily harder on ourselves. In a modern 21st century sedentary lifestyle where an entire day’s worth of chores can be done on a smart phone, such as shopping, paying bills and booking a trip, we spend far too much time sitting and not giving these muscles the core stimulation they deserve.
In your senior years this can cause serious debilitating postural problems such as needing a cane or walker, easily breakable hip bones and being easily knocked down from a strong gust of wind. Since the glutes and hamstrings are the strongest muscle in the body they also burn a tremendous amount of calories which can be very beneficial to weight loss. Unfortunately we neglect these muscles alarming levels and spend most of our time on our quadriceps and other “show” muscles - if we exercise our legs at all.
It’s important to make exercising your glutes and hamstrings a top priority because when they are weak this can disrupt the muscular imbalance of the body. This means that as you get older you can look forward to pain, discomfort and injuries in areas most common among the elderly such as lower back pain, knee and hip injury.
One of the biggest benefits of strengthening your glutes and hamstrings is the affect it has on posture. Having a lower belly that sticks out is just as much a muscle weakness problem as an excessive body fat problem. Even people who are not overweight may still be ashamed of their lower belly because they spend too much time with diet and exercise and not on muscles that improve posture. Anterior pelvic tilt is very common among people who live sedentary lives. This is not always due to belly fat but it’s because having weak glutes and hamstrings cause your rear pelvis to tilt upward and frontal pelvis to tilt downward. This can also cause lower back pain because an upper tilting pelvis places pressure on our lower spine, causing it to arch inward giving your torso an “S” shape.
An added benefit to men over 40 who lift weights and strengthen their glutes and hamstrings is the hormonal impact it has on testosterone production, HGH production and other hormones that keep you energized, feeling strong and athletic and many other benefits that keep men feeling young. Exercises typically done to strengthen glutes are very demanding and exert a lot of energy, such as squats, deadlifts, lunges and others high demanding exercises which can help you burn more fat and reach your overall goals faster. Having strong glutes and hamstrings go far beyond having a sexy round buttock. Your quality of life will be improved structurally by and hormonally and you remain standing tall and pain free in your senior years.
Here’s a list of exercises you can try for your glutes and hamstrings.
- Hip Raise
- Weighted Hip Raise
- Single Leg Hip Raise
- Swiss Ball Hip Raise
- Back Extension
- Barbell or Dumbbell Dead Lift
- Cable Pull Through
- Smith Machine Glute Leg Raise
