The societal treatment of the bottoms is unjust. At best, we reduce their worth to their shape: 'She has a nice big ass,' 'How flat her bottom...' or 'How round her butt is.' At worst, we equate it with modest intellectual abilities: 'Dumb-ass.' However, glutes are one of the most important muscle groups, crucial not just for our health but also for activities like running or skiing.
1. How is soccer related to the ski slopes?
2. What happens when we stand on one leg?
3. The hamstrings
4. The kick
5. The glutes in skiing
6. The solution
How is soccer related to the ski slopes?
A friend of mine had his left knee flexors torn some time ago. He kicked with his left foot during football; otherwise, he is a right-footed kicker. It seems logical that he made the wrong move with his clumsier leg. He was surprised that I thought his right leg could have been the real cause of the injury.
How can your right leg be clumsy if you are right-footed? So that the right foot skillfully kicks the ball, but the left foot provides stable support as a base.
The right foot skillfully kicks, and the left foot expertly supports. All of them are clumsy in a reversed cast. The pelvis is unstable if the right foot does not provide stable support when kicking with the left foot. The affected flexors originate in the pelvis, so if the pelvis could move during kicking, they could be in a risky position.
What happens when we stand on one leg?
The pelvis bone connects the two legs like a bridge connects the two pillars, and our upper body is the weight that the bridge holds. As long as both pillars are stable, the entire structure is balanced. But when standing on one leg, it's like a pillar of a bridge has collapsed. The standing pillar keeps its side (in the human case, the pelvis with the hip joint), but the other side sinks.
Moreover, it not only sinks but also twists. The upper body (which is carried by the pelvis) and the unloaded leg (which is hanging on the pelvis) spread forward and backward beyond the point of support, so the pelvis will twist somewhere..
The hamstrings
Hamstrings not only bend the knee but also extend the femur (i.e., pull the leg back at the hip) and rotate the lower leg as well.
The affected hamstrings originate at the pelvis, bridging the hip and knee joints and attaching to the lower leg (biarticular or multi-joint muscles).
During kicking, the lower leg moves forward. The nervous system knows quite a lot about this movement since we ourselves command it. The contraction of the knee extensors (quads) creates the movement, and the flexors (hamstrings) relax accordingly.
The nervous system assumes the pelvis is stable. This prediction is wrong if the support leg does not stabilize the pelvis correctly. Because of this, the muscle can easily be overstretched or even torn.
Thus, improper support on the other side can cause inaccuracy or injury.
The kick
Support before the kick
Before the kick, the leg is prepared for the kick. The hamstrings contract, pulling the lower leg back so that the knee extensors (quads) are prepared to accelerate the lower leg. The contraction of the hamstrings acts as a spring to stretch and pretension the extensor muscles.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the hip muscles of the supporting leg (including the glutes) anchor the pelvis to the femur to create solid conditions for an accurate kick.
The kick
The pre-stretched quads (extensors) play a significant role in kicking, which explosively accelerates the lower leg towards the ball. However, the hamstrings must relax just as quickly; otherwise, they would slow down and hold back the lower leg.
What causes a hamstring injury?
Relaxing quickly is almost more challenging than contracting rapidly. If even a subtle timing error slips into the relaxation, not only will it result in a slower kick, but the only partially relaxed hamstrings may strain (or even tear). If the muscles on the side of the supporting leg cannot stabilize the pelvis, this could easily happen.
The glutes in skiing
The essence of skiing is the turn, and during the turn, our right and left legs do completely different work.
The outside leg carries the load on the inner sole of the foot (on the big toe side). This foot is affected by the side of the inner sole, and our muscles try to stabilize it accordingly, all the way to the hip joint. We trust this site more, we feel it is more load-bearing.
The inside leg is in contact with the ground on the outside of the sole (on the little toe side), so the foot should be stabilized on this side. In addition, the knees and hips are more bent here, so the joint angles are not the same on the two sides. We find this page less load-bearing and even more clumsy. (Speaking of soccer, kicks are usually much better with the big toe than the pinky toe side.)
In acute situations, we typically try to solve everything with our smart body parts and "hide" the clumsy. For example, we usually start the stairs with the same foot: the jumping foot. If we must carry a heavy weight up the stairs, we begin with this leg and always step next to it with the other. For this reason, when skiing, it is similar to if we want to kick the ball with the same foot as the one we are standing on during the kick.
You can ski effectively if you coordinate the activity of the two legs. In a good turn, the outside leg tries to move forward on the curve. It tries to ensure that it does not fall behind due to the resistance of the ground, does not slip out, that the load remains on it in the right spot, and that the tip of the ski does not move out of the turn. This complex task can only be performed accurately if the inside leg muscles connect the femur to the pelvis in a stable way. If they do not know precisely this task, the pelvis will move, and the outside leg will not have a stable stance to perform its duty.
The solution
If we were to suggest that we kick with our clumsier feet from now on, those who don't play football would be in trouble. It is a useful method of changing our habits and practicing the unusual, but it is not necessarily the most effective method.
The hip is a ball-and-socket joint, so we can not only flex and extend the leg (femur) here but also move it apart (straddle) and bring it closer, and in the meantime, it can even turn. This is a very complex task: for example, the gluteus medius, in addition to extending the thigh in the hip joint, also rotates it laterally or medially, depending on how much it is extended or flexed. So, the same muscle rotates the leg in the exact opposite direction when we stand more extended than when we squat.
The same movement will have a different effect depending on whether that leg is firmly on the ground or not, bent or extended. A specific muscle action will move the leg in some direction, but if the leg is firmly fixed on the ground, the pelvis will move instead of the leg (closed or opened kinetic chains).
For this, the support leg must be very skillful. By trying to rely more on the other, we will not bring in the advantage of our supporting leg accumulated since childhood. We only have a chance to do this if we start the development with much more effective methods.
It is as if the nervous system knows less about the functioning of our rarely-used muscles. The best example of this is the ear muscles, which exist, but we cannot feel or contract them because we do not use them. After enough practice, we start to feel their presence, and after a while, we can move the ears. All the other rarely used muscles behave similarly. We often replace (compensate) their incomplete operation with different solutions.
Willpower or plain effort is not the most effective method. With purposefully created situations, attention, and precise execution - and patience - we can make the feelings appear for the first time. Based on this feedback, it is possible to teach the nervous system step by step to use the necessary muscles in the right situations instead of compensatory "cheats." For example, for a stable turn, the glutes of the inside leg must be taught to distinguish between outward and inward rotation at different positions, flexion and extension with and without rotation, pelvic rotation with both femurs fixed, hip flexion with active glutes, etc.
The primary problem is not a lack of power. The nervous system gets used to a different program (we call this "bad habits"). Such habits cannot be corrected with hard power training; instead, they will be imprinted even more.
The key to mastering muscle movement is conscious practice. By actively learning and regularly reminding our nervous system of the correct movement patterns, we can overwrite decades-old habits. The power is in our hands, and the key is quality execution and regularity.
It is worth more to repeat every day in a quarter of an hour than three times a week in two hours.
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