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OBSERVATIONS ON THE PASSING STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING SCENE, PART 2: BUTT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING?

Your secret isn’t much of a secret.

Yes, yes.  You came to CrossFit because you want to be in excellent shape.  You wanted to gain strength and endurance.  You don’t want to be a ninja. No.  You want to be THE NINJA!

But there’s another desire.  A desire that’s too dark to speak about in polite company.  A desire that makes all, but a few blush at the mere thought.

You want to look good.

Go ahead.  Admit it.  It’s okay.  We get it.  We want to look good too!  Yeah, we have a bit of a vanity issue that we hope is under control.  We’re not taking selfies with our unmade bed in the background or Instagraming underwear shots, but when we walk by that full length mirror in Lord & Taylor’s we want our reflection to give us that looking good-nod.  And it always does!

For the male members of the species the vanity priority will be on the chest, biceps and abs.  This is too boring for me to address and nobody cares.  Not to mention I’ll get an assortment of comments that consist of men telling me I’m wrong because their priority is their latissimus dorsi or their rectus femoris or some other part of their body that will best demonstrate they know the science names for their muscles.  By the way, there is one male feature that is always acceptable to discuss and be vein about: a beard that is more than 21 days old, but I digress.

Let’s get to the butt of the matter.  The bottom….line, if you will.  The part of the body that women, apparently, are losing sleep over: THE GLUTES.

Ladies I understand.  I’m a fan of powerful glutes.  I realize that all power athletes have a powerful butt.  This isn’t what YOU’RE talking about though, is it?

No.

You want that super-bad butt you saw on someone who achieved some level of fame by plastering her ass over whatever form of social media she could handle.  You want a behind that men write books about.  You want a posterior that will launch a thousand ships.  And you want it to be art-work with zero cellulite and no blemishes of any sort.

I want to make a few things very clear:

1) Nobody obsesses over your ass like you do.  And it’s annoying.

2) If you are working hard and consistently on strength and conditioning and you’re eating properly your posterior looks AND WORKS better than it did before you began training.

3) If you have met the criteria from point#2 your backside–your ENTIRE backside(from trapezius to heels) looks better than you think it does.

4) There is only so much you can do about cellulite.  It often has nothing to do with your level of fitness.  In the history of mankind no man has broken up with a woman, divorced a woman, been revolted by a woman or started a war over cellulite. Never.  (Men be advised: a woman can spot cellulite on themselves in a poorly lit room, in a mirror 37-feet away.  You will not be able to see it in a brightly lit room from 6-inches away.)   (Women be advised:  If a man is 6-inches away from where your alleged cellulite is supposed to be he is not looking for or at the alleged cellulite and, at this point really doesn’t care.)

5) You don’t like when men stare at your bottom.  Why do you look at it so much??

6) You can always improve your glutes but do realize that some women are genetically predisposed to have a note-worthy behind.

7) You can always improve your gutes but do realize that photos can be modified and not everyone you’re looking at on the internet is the real deal.

8) Stop comparing yourself to other people.

Let’s move on to the important stuff–working out to make physical improvements.  First and foremost: the glutes are big, strong muscles, they need to be worked hard.  Best glute exercises are squats, deadlifts, hip thrusters and glute bridges.  Don’t take my word for it, click HERE to visit the website of Bret Contreras.  Bret’s body of research work has earned him the title of “The Glute Guy”.  Sprinting, pushing the prowler, kettlebell swings and split jumps are good too.

Many women are drawn to butt-exercises that require little movement and light weight.  Sorry about it, but you have to go heavy and force the glutes to adapt.  Your glutes will resist you and laugh at your puny attempts to alter their strength and shape through puny movements and puny weights.  You need to establish dominance over your glutes and show them you are serious.

Here’s something else to think about:  If you spend 16 hours a day using your glutes as cushions to sit on you’re training them to adapt to do nothing but grow weaker.  If you spent years of your life not challenging your glutes (no lengthy walking, no sports, no training while, at the same time, sitting at work, sitting during your commute, sitting to eat, sitting to watch television, sitting at your computer and sitting at the bar) then you may need to “wake your glutes up and re-teach them how to work hard.

Take control over what you can: intelligent training and proper eating.  Don’t spend your time and energy thinking about what you have no control over: genetics.  Be happy that you are working out on a regular basis.  Know that you are making improvements on a regular basis.  If your training and nutrition habits are in order than I guarantee you look better than you think you do.

Workout of the Day
Deadlift
1X3@70% 1RM
1X3@80% 1RM
1X3@90% 1RM

Use 90% of your 1 rep max as your 1 rep max when figuring out percentages.

6 minute AMRAP:
20 lunge steps
10 kettlebell snatch, 5 left& 5 right

rest 2 minutes

6 minute AMRAP:
5 toes to bar
10 box jumps

There is no prescribed weight and box height on purpose.

Post your scores to the Whiteboard.