Best Exercise MODIFICATION You Could Ever Do

So after spending the past weekend, a long one at that as it was Victoria Day on Monday, aptly named May 2-4 weekend (leave it to Canadians to name a holiday after a case of beer), The Future and I decided to load some bikes and hit the road and head out to the mountains for some fresh air and quiet solitude. Little did we know that higher elevations still had a crap-load of snow everywhere, which meant no mountain biking for us, but did leave the door wide open for some spring hiking, as well as some planning for activities we could do for our honeymoon in August. Plus it gave us some cool pictures like this….

…as well as a classic “Couples” shot like this…..

Next time we head up there, it should be green with much less white, which means way more opportunity to explore and get our active on and our vacation on at the same time!!

So now that I’m back in the mix after a quick re-charge of the battery, I thought I would hit everyone up with a small adaptation to one of my favorite exercises of all time, the Glute Hip Press. This is a beauty I have been playing around with for a few years, but after seeing Bret Contreras throw around some serious weight with it and use it as a strength exercise, not simply a base-level strength and mobility exercise, some new doors started flying open in how I thought about the glutes and developing strength for them.

Here, there is the added benefit of wrapping an elastic around the knees to provide resistance for external rotation.

Since the function of the glutes is to extend the hip as well as externally rotate it, having the elastic provide some resistance to external rotation forces the maximus to work harder than through simply pressing copious amounts of weight off the floor with your dumper. If there was a way to throw in some abduction without lifting a foot off the floor, we’d be sitting on booties made of adamantium, not just run-of-the-mill stainless steel.

When using an elastic for this exercise, the best place to put it is slightly above the knee-joint, and it should be tight enough to feel resistance when the shins are vertical, but not so much that it impedes movement or forces the knees towards each other and the hips to internally rotate.

This addition will reduce the overall amount of weight that can be lifted with the exercise, but the added stress on femoral rotation stability will more than make up for it, especially for those who have hip mobility issues. I normally have to drop a plate a side to do this one, so depending on the tension of the elastic it could be roughly anywhere from 20-30% reduction in weight lifted.

Well, no that I’ve dropped some knowledge, it’s time to go hit the weights myself. Gotta show that I drink the Kool-Aid too, not just ladle it out to everyone I meet!!