Part Three - the glute activation regime
A lot of people have been contacting me to send out this regime I talked about in my previous blog post. So I am inspired to get this out today to ya’ll! I always like to reiterate that I am not any of the following: a doctor, a physical therapist, or even a fitness expert, I am simply sharing my journey and perhaps it may help someone else. I would highly recommend that if you are under the care of a sports MD or in physical therapy to ask them if you should try this.
Ok – now down to the good stuff! Here is it, my little morning ritual that I still do daily at best – 3x / week at worst. I did this on a daily basis for 30 days and gave working out a break for a month. NOT working out for a month was not easy and scary all at the same time, but I needed to re-activate my glutes without aggravating my back. I did of course continue walking my daughter to school and general day to day movement but there was NO yoga, cycle, orange theory, weight lifting or running of any sort, just this!
This is the link which has all the exercises including utube videos to explain how to do them. https://bretcontreras.com/jane-fonda-experiment/ - this guy is seriously amazeballs, yes I said that! I made a few modifications based on what I knew my back could handle. For example, I was not ready for any single leg exercises.
I modified the 2 series to this instead and switched #3.
2A. frog pumps – 30 reps (I literally do these every single day prior to any work out and if I start to get a dull ache in my toosh.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyCiZVMMDW4
2B. side lying clam raise – 20 reps
3. quadruped hip extension from elbows – 20 reps
When I started doing these exercises I realized I could not, in a sitting position, clench my left glute (side of my injury) AT ALL! Within about a week I was clenching my butt cheeks whenever I got a chance, at the sink washing dishes, standing in the grocery store line, you name it, I was clenching! I also started to wake up with less pain every day, that dull ache was slowly fading. As the pain eased, my heart and mood lifted. Oh – and after a month my toosh was looking quite fabulous if I do say so myself! And all of this without any heavy weightlifting – amazeballs, I said it again!
So in conjunction with this morning routine I was doing a series of stretches with light meditation to start my day. What I learned in my first yoga 100 hours was the stretching I was doing was ALL wrong! It is actually really simple – if you have sensitive SI joints or disc injuries twisting is going to aggravate them. My stretching included this pose – can you see how although this felt like a great stretch in my glute it was twisting my spine in a way that was aggravating on my SIs?
Linda – after listening to me I think, inspired her to teach the entire yoga training how to stretch on your back with straps. I immediately completely changed my stretching routine utilizing straps and ended up having amazing results. I still start with downward dog to stretch out my calves and get blood flowing and do Pidgeon as I love it but after that, it’s all with straps on my back holding each stretch for 1 minute – I actually time it through breath! I am hoping that Linda will make a utub video of these stretches with a strap to share with you all. Once I feel more confident after my 200 hours is complete I will create my own for all of you! Right now just get yourself some yoga straps and I also LOVE the yoga ball. I highly recommend taking Linda’s Saturday 10:15 yoga class at YogaSource Los Gatos to learn ways to use the ball and some guided meditation – along with an hour of yoga flow! Its 90 minutes and well worth the time.
http://www.yogasourcelosgatos.com/schedule
This entire above series in full with some light mediation takes up to 45 minutes but it is well worth finding the time. In fact, I have been slacking on my routine and have noticed that dull ache rearing its ugly head. So all of you who reached out, have inspired me to make sure I am doing this every day!
Xoxo - Namaste!
Here are some links to get yoga therapy balls and straps.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0100ZGZD0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ERF6X4G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1