Quads Over My Glutes!

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

I am uncertain if this would best be put in this forum or the bodybuilding forum. But since i train exclusively for sport performance i felt this would be best.
I lift legs often because of the huge performance improvements i see doing them. My workouts consist of squats, variations of deadlifts and lunges. I alternate between back squats and front squats and so on. I have no problem with how much weight i lift, i am very satisfied with my lifts!

My problem is this, i have so much touble getting my glutes to Grow! When i squat, do lunges and so on my quads take the brunt of the work by far. i could care less about my quads, glute strength has such a larger carry over to sport performance.

Do you guys have any suggestions on how to get my glutes to grow or fire correctly? I also want to minimize anymore growth in my quads until my glutes come up to par…if that is possible. But either way your suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

2

Well you even say yourself that doing squats and lunges result in your quads doing most of the work…which is expected. Limit these and concentrate on deadlifts to focus on the glutes more.

Keep in mind that your quads might just be genetically predisposed to grow faster though.

3

Eliminate free back and front squats and instead concentrate on box squats and deadlifts. As for the lunges, make sure you’re taking BIG steps as that will engage the hips to a greater degree. My suggestion would be to have your lower body days looking like Defrancos ws4sb ME lower days. This is how my current ws4sb lower day looks:

Warmup

A. Box squat to parallel box
Working up to a 3 rep max

B. Reverse lunges
3 x 8

C. Pull-throughs
3 x 8

D. Ab circuit or whatever

When I do the reverse lunges I try to concentrate on pulling myself up with my glutes and hamstrings. You could also substitute pull-throughs for glute ham raises if you have the machine. Otherwise manual ones are a viable alternative. Try that routine and you’ll see what it will do to your glute strength.

4

Single leg deadlifting.

5

Could also be activation issues.

Do some SMR, static stretching around the hips, glute activation work.

6

I think good mornings (stiff legged and bent legged versions used in conjunction) are the best way to really hit the glutes. This, plus long stride, heavy walking lunges, really work well for me. During the walking lunges, really focus on propelling yourself forward via hip extension version standing upright via knee extension.

7

sumo deadlifts, wider stance on your squats (squat down in between your legs as opposed to on top of them)

8

what i did…make sure you have good flexability and mobility, do activation stuff for your glutes EVERY day, as much as possible, if you can activate them all the time and really feel them during any movement throughout the day, its great practice to be able to focus on them and activate them better during your weights

do lots of activation stuff before you exercise obviously,
second, do some stuff (like rack deadlifts) partial range of motion and just squeeze em like hell, and pull through using your glutes, and some full range squats (who cares what style), whatever you can feel a full stretch in your glutes, drop the weight, becasue now you’re training muscles not movements, and focus on the feel, eventually your weights will keep moving up and you’ll start to use you’re body the way you were meant to

as to maybe your body is predetermined? fuck that, yeah sure there will always be things easier and things you have to fight for, but just train accordingly and make the change happen

now i’m trying to deal with controlling all these nasty STRETCHMARKS (highlighted so you know its actually working for me first hand) on my ass, so look out ahead of time before its too late, i suprised myself (and others) with how well my glutes have come in, especially considering they have always previously been a weeklink (activation issues aswell)

9

[quote]Nian wrote:
Eliminate free back and front squats and instead concentrate on box squats and deadlifts. As for the lunges, make sure you’re taking BIG steps as that will engage the hips to a greater degree. My suggestion would be to have your lower body days looking like Defrancos ws4sb ME lower days. This is how my current ws4sb lower day looks:

Warmup

A. Box squat to parallel box
Working up to a 3 rep max

B. Reverse lunges
3 x 8

C. Pull-throughs
3 x 8

D. Ab circuit or whatever

When I do the reverse lunges I try to concentrate on pulling myself up with my glutes and hamstrings. You could also substitute pull-throughs for glute ham raises if you have the machine. Otherwise manual ones are a viable alternative. Try that routine and you’ll see what it will do to your glute strength.[/quote]

Personally, i think completely removing free squats isn’t a good idea if you’re training for sports performance. Then again, ws4sb seems to work for a lot of people…
Also, I agree deadlifts should be a priority

10

box squats,glute ham,big step lunges,rdl stiffed,try standing on some box and then taking the bar down,lower than your feet level,high rep reguired in this one,also your back must not be in wright line,but in curved position.

11

if you lunge with a longer step i tend to feel it more in glutes than quads o_O where as if i do short strides i feel it all in quads, food for thoughts

12

box squats+glute ham.

how much are you squatting and deadlifting?

13

thats really good feedback, thanks guys!
I will work on all those different ideas and see what seems to activate my glutes the most as well as get them sore.

As for my lifts i really did not want to go there, cause i’m not hear to boast or hear how weak i am to others. but if it would help in anyway…

back squat 455lbs x 4-6 reps (depends on the day)
traditional deadlift 545lbs x 2-3 reps

what is a glute ham?

14

[quote]brian.m wrote:
what i did…make sure you have good flexability and mobility, do activation stuff for your glutes EVERY day, as much as possible, if you can activate them all the time and really feel them during any movement throughout the day, its great practice to be able to focus on them and activate them better during your weights

do lots of activation stuff before you exercise obviously,
second, do some stuff (like rack deadlifts) partial range of motion and just squeeze em like hell, and pull through using your glutes, and some full range squats (who cares what style), whatever you can feel a full stretch in your glutes, drop the weight, becasue now you’re training muscles not movements, and focus on the feel, eventually your weights will keep moving up and you’ll start to use you’re body the way you were meant to

as to maybe your body is predetermined? fuck that, yeah sure there will always be things easier and things you have to fight for, but just train accordingly and make the change happen

now i’m trying to deal with controlling all these nasty STRETCHMARKS (highlighted so you know its actually working for me first hand) on my ass, so look out ahead of time before its too late, i suprised myself (and others) with how well my glutes have come in, especially considering they have always previously been a weeklink (activation issues aswell)[/quote]

well im quite intrigued that your glutes were a weak link and now you are getting so much growth you have stretch marks. good for you!
so what activation work do you do before you lift?
what do you do for mobility and stretching?

15

haha, i dont love the stretch marks, but i’m finally getting noticed for having the black ass i always dreamed of having haha

i wish i had a video camera or something to try to describe it, the main one i used (remember, i’d do a few until i’d feel that my glutes were warm and already had a bit of a pump before every workout) was to lie face down, with on leg bent at the knee at a 90’ angle, where you try to push (through you’re heel) straight up, use a mirror because for the longest time, my foot would be going in all these weird directions even when it felt like it was straight up

i really recommend doing this stuff very often, even 6months from now, because if i dont do it for a few days, ican feel my hamstrings and inner thighs (never had a problem growing these areas, and they have “takeover tendancies”) straining and my glutes not taking the load as well

another one i’ll do after is one i saw on T-Nation (i’m sorry i forgot the author, but if you do a search for hip mobility and function and glute articles, it’s definitly in there, along with some other good ideas) is to stand straight up, and you can use a band around your feet or knees, and shuffle side to side…i didnt use bands so i would focus on pushing the side of my shoe against the ground enough to feel my glute activating and then let it break traction until i had shuffled over…that probably didnt make sense and i’m sure i just butchered the guy’s exercise…anyways, another one i tried for a while was kneeling squats in a smith machine, and to be honest i liked it, aside from looking stupid
one i do fairly frequently (since you dont have to get on the ground for it if in public) is leg swings (back behind you) almost like a donkey kick or something, basically, keep your torso rigid and focus on that glute and just squeeeeze…squeeze all the time, rather than just swing back as far as possible

you may not want to know all this, but i’ll give you a little background incase it helps

basically, one of the main reasons i started focussing on all this is because of some moderate to severe back pain stemed from shitty form, posture, mobility, activation issues, and trying to ride a freaking stuntbike at 6foot1" for years

its been touch and go for years, and just sick of it, i decided to do everything right starting this spring, barring nothing, so that no matter what i would see results, even if i didnt need to put in all that effort, to eliminate the possibility of failure, and i completely recommend this mindset as i’m getting getting accussed of juicing (where i say my 5-6000 calories of solid food is my juice…i think i’m funny ha)

so with that in mind, i knew i needed to get my glutes to grow, but where the “just lift heavy” mantra didnt work for me so many times in the past, is when you go too heavy, your dominant parts will take over, and this is where most ppl will just assume its destined to be and thats their “genetic flaw”…however, it does not have to be this way

so, i knew glutes where most activated in the deep stretched possition and near lockout, so mobility work was key, like deep lunges (focussion on pushing through glutes/heals) to warm up hips, and more activation, and after heavy lifting for an auxillary…heavy backsquats hurt my back too much, even frontsquats…so i had two leg days every 8 days (one frontsquat to a high box, that i slowly worked down until doing full range without back pain over 6 months lower reps so i would still be able to go heavy on something, and one narrow backsquat day where i would go in a higher ie 10ish rep range and focus on glutes more)…(pulls out log book, highly recommend it, when trying new exercises you can write down what really hits them hard, and what doesnt seem to be the right thing, at that time anyways)

-partially for my old man back, but also, i noticed whenever squatting wide(or even moderate, at the time), my hams, innerthighs and back would take over, so i brought my stance in to hip width on backsquats, and went deep…basically you want to feel a stretch in your glutes, and use that feeling to know that you’re glutes are doing the work to drive you up…again, lighter weights are necessary At First, (but my backsquatand frontsquat are now a fair bit higher than before so stick with whatever you’re doing)
and then of course deadlifts are going to be a cornerstone…but again, lessen the weight, feel the muscle…for now, and work up, i also felt snatch grip deadlifts helped a bit, but rack lockouts really seemed to help for me…i went just around knee, or a little below, because any lower and your hamstrings start to come into play,from there, just pull through the hips, squeeze your ass like hell the whole time, and i’ll no doubt do wonders for your back, traps and grip while you’re at it, definitely a “money” exercise in my books

honestly i cant stress enough how much doing all my stupid activation and mobility drills help, even outside of workouts, because outside of a little extra volume (eventually increase my days of rest between workouts to accomadate also), my training isnt THAT much different than before,just a little smarter, with proper warmups (12 min on bike easy, just to break a sweat, then i would start mobility and activation) but it makes a huge diff…ie, even if i’m shovelling dirt for work or soemthing, if i dont do anything, i feel intense pressure in my lower back after a bit…if i go around the corner, get my glutes going, and come back, lactic acid or whatever pressure all but gone

WOW>>…if you get through this,hat off to ya…and i will personnally work on being more direct next time haha rather than takeing up all of T-Nations bandwidth,just want to make sure its clear and what not…anyways, i hope something in this dissaster post is of help and use haha