Hook Hip Lift For Stronger Glutes! Quick & Easy

women stretching thighs and legs

Today, let’s focus on hook hip lift!  Do you complain of tight hamstrings or been told you have weakness in your lower back? Do you want to strengthen those glute muscles? I mean you should! They are the big drivers when we sit to stand, push ourselves forward, and need more balance than we probably give credit to.

If you are and you do, then this article is right for you!

This is perfect for people with short and tight hamstrings which correlates quite strongly to a feeling of a weak or unstable back, and those who want to strengthen their butt muscles in order for more back health. You can easily follow the steps I’m going to share with you.

Why this tightening of hamstrings and weaker backs happen?

But before we dive into anything, you may be wondering why you experience tightening of hamstrings and weaker backs or why you would want to get more power and strength you’re your buttocks.

Your muscles can weaken from a few causes, the most common being poor posture, repetitive movements, and sitting for long periods of time. This can be due to work at home or the office or because of a sedentary lifestyle; the result is a weak butt and hamstring group that tighten up to protect and support an unstable pelvis. What happens is that when there is a limited range of motion, your hip flexors find themselves in a continuous-shortened position. Though genetics can be another factor i.e. genetically you are born with short hamstrings.

This goes the same for weak backs. Sitting at your desks all the time or lack of physical activities causes all your core muscles to weaken which often leads to lower back pain. This situation does not only cause you pain but also affect your posture, making your back sore, weak, and stiff.

Why Suffer?

You don’t have to suffer from this postural anomaly – we don’t HAVE TO live with tight hamstrings and poor strength in the glutes and lower back. I will teach you what you can do and how to do this exercise correctly so you can alleviate those imbalanced muscles.


How to Strengthen your Glute Maximus?

You’re going to need a tennis ball to perform this technique, we focus on and target strengthening the Glute Maximus during this exercise. Next, follow the steps below.

1.The first thing you need to do is lie down on your back and bend your knees and rest your feet on the ground. Take the ball in your left hand and settle it on the lower ribs directly below your breast tissue. Let’s do this on the left side to start with.

  1. Now that ball is resting there, bring the left knee up to hug the ball and secure it from moving during the exercise.
  2. Let’s make the RIGHT glute do some work! You are about to do a one-legged bridge pose which we know really works the butt efficiently. We need to tweak this up a bit before you start.
  3. Keep the heel down but lift the ball and toes off the floor. This encourages a small heel dig which gives more power to the buttock.

  1. Let’s start the bridging pose now! Your hips will lift up towards the ceiling by contracting the right Glute Maximus, squeeze at the top, hold it for 2 seconds before going down.
  2. Then, pull your hips up and hold it again for 2 seconds before going down. Repeat this again for 8 times the last time before doing the steps again for the other leg. A total of 10 sets for each leg every day to get the full benefits of this exercise. You will feel dramatic changes in the strength of your glutes, your hamstrings are less active in this exercise and overtime should feel less need to help keep the pelvis stable. When that happens their length improves oh yes and your lower back will also benefit from this exercise because a strong bum means a happy back!!

How to address your compressive hip issues?

For those who have compressive hip issues where you can’t bring the legs all the way up to your chest, here is an alternative exercise for you.

  1. First, cross your leg over on top of the other.
  2. Then, press the leg that is crossed over, applying a little bit of pressure. If you notice that your hip rolled to the side of your raised leg, press your hip using your other hand so that you stay on your back while doing this exercise.

This exercise is nice for people with arthritis that want to get a glute stretch and eliminate tight hamstrings and weak backs.

So that’s it for now. I hope you found this exercise helpful. See you again in another article.

Write a comment