Work That Butt!

As I mentioned, I started PT for my knee pain again. Part of the program involves strengthening the muscles that help keep my pelvis and hips aligned so my patella can track properly. One set of these muscles is the gluteus medius, see picture. Man, we sure found an exercise to work them, my butt is so so sore. And no surprise, my left is weaker than right. So, since a fair number of ladies are always trying to "work that butt" I figured I'd share the exercise in case you want to try something new.

It's called "the clam," basically because you're moving your leg similar to how a clam opens its shell. The wonders of google images let to me these pictures for you from this site.

And the directions from their site as well:

a) Start position: lying on side with knees and hips bent slightly

b) Action: keeping feet touching, raise top knee, hold 5 seconds, slowly lower. Make sure not to roll hip/pelvis backwards. This is called cheating! I sometimes put my hand on my hip to make sure I don't feel it rolling backward. It is not necessary to move the knee upwards as far as possible, about 6 inches is plenty. You should feel the muscles in the outside and slightly to the back of the hip tightening during the exercise.

I'm starting with 4 reps of 15 on each side