The gluteus maximus is one of the most powerful and well known muscles in your body. However, it could not reach its full potential without strengthening two lesser-known, and perhaps the most important glute muscles: the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. The medius and minimus are vital to the function of your lower body.
The gluteus medius is located on the lateral aspect of the upper buttock. Its primary purpose is stabilization and abduction at the hip joint.
The gluteus minimus is the smallest muscle of the glute. It is located underneath the medius and shares similar functions and structure, predominantly guiding your hip stabilization and abduction.
Together with the gluteus maximus, these muscles help move the hip joint and stabilize the pelvis to maintain strength, posture, and balance.
When Do We Use Our Glutes?
Aside from their primary stabilization functions, your glute muscles are used for just about every lower or full-body movement. From the more obvious squat to jumping, running, lateral movement, and more, the glutes are essential in athletics and everyday life.
Similar to previous discussions about core and grip strength (link to articles), the glutes are going to be called upon on a daily basis. In your everyday life, you will be walking, climbing stairs, bending down to pick up an item, and performing many more activities that require functional glute muscles. Targeting all three muscles in full will provide you the strength, freedom, and confidence to take on your day from an intense training session to everyday life.
How To Train Your Glutes With ChopFit
While it can be difficult to train the medius and minimus, ChopFit does exactly that. ChopFit targets these two muscles, providing essential hip, pelvis, and knee stability, especially during single-leg activities.
The best part is that there are endless amounts of exercises you can do with ChopFit to target these muscles.
In a simple “Cross Chop” movement, the glutes are relied on to stabilize your hip and produce power up the posterior chain.
During the “Lunge Chop”, you challenge your glutes to not only stabilize your body, but to provide the strength to go deep and power back up from the lunge with the proper posture.
To get the most of out your glute training, you will want to focus on using a variety of exercises that target each muscle differently. If your first day of training consisted of mostly sagittal plane movements, switch it up on day two with some lateral dynamic exercises to truly test all three aspects of your glutes. The more you do, the better your glutes will function and the more strength and power you can develop.