The One Leg Squat and Reach Exercise Isolates the Gluteus and Improves Balance

Isolate Your Gluteus and Build Better Balance and Core Strength

By Elizabeth Quinn, About.com

Updated: May 13, 2009

The one-leg squat-and-reach exercise builds balance, ankle strength, proprioception, gluteus muscle strengthening, and trunk stabilization.

Using this type of stability exercise challenges your balance and engages muscles that are used while performing any exercise your perform with one leg at a time, such as running, cross country skiing, and even cycling.

This exercise is also a good way to regain balance and stability after an ankle, hip or core muscle injury. By maintaining this stable position during the exercise, you will engage your glutes, hips and core muscles by working many muscles at one time.

Basic One Leg Squat and Reach:

• Place an object on the floor about 2-3 feet in front and to the left of your left foot.
• Balance on your left foot; raise your right foot off the ground.
• Slowly bend your left knee and lower your torso.
• Reach forward with your right hand and touch the object.
• Maintain your balance by extending your right leg slightly.
• Be sure to keep your left knee over your left foot.
• Touch the object, pause, and return to the start position.
• Maintain a slow and controlled movement throughout the exercise.
• Repeat the exercise 5-10 times. Switch feet and repeat on the other side.
• Complete 2 sets.

Advanced One-Leg Squat-and-Reach:

• Because shoes offer additional support, you can increase the difficulty of this exercise by performing it barefoot. This engages the small muscles of the foot and ankle that stabilize the ankle and maintain balance.
• You can also hold a small, 5-8 pound dumbbell in your hand as your reach forward and slowly reach out to the left as far as you can go, pause 3 seconds and then slowly return, switch hands and reach to the right.
• Repeat 10-15 times on each side and switch to the opposite foot and hand.
• Do 2 sets for each side.

Back Strengthening - LUNGE

Lunge

How to do it: With your abs gently contracted and hands on hips, take a big step forward with your right foot. Sink down so your right knee is at a 90-degree angle, then push back to the starting position without pausing. Repeat 8 to 12 times, then switch legs and repeat.

What it does: Improves whole-body control, which is key to protecting the spine during walking, running, or stair-climbing. Recruits both surface and deeper stabilizing muscles along the sides, glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves.

Make it harder: Set up to do a basic lunge, but this time step your right foot out on a diagonal, not straight ahead, as if the foot is pointing to 2 o’clock on a clock face. (When you lunge with the left foot, step it out to 10 o’clock.) The change in foot placement makes it harder to balance. As you get stronger, try it with your hands interlaced behind your head or hold a dumbbell in each hand to increase resistance.

Back Strengthening Exercise - Side Plank

Side Plank

How to do it: Lie on your right side, in a straight line from head to feet, resting on your forearm. Your elbow should be directly under your shoulder. With your abdominals gently contracted, lift your hips off the floor, maintaining the line. Keep your hips square and your neck in line with your spine. Hold 20 to 40 seconds and lower. Repeat two to three times, alternating sides. (If this is too challenging, start with bent knees.)

What it does: Builds strength and endurance in the core. This will help keep your lower back protected and stable during activities that require movement in the hips or back.

Make it harder: While holding the basic position, lift and lower your top leg. Gradually work toward holding the upper leg for 5 to 10 counts. Another option: Instead of resting on your forearm, support your body with your hand, palm on the floor and under the shoulder, elbow straight.

Back Strengthening Exercise

Bird Dog

How to do it: Begin on all fours, knees hip-width apart and under the hips, hands flat and shoulder-width apart. Squeeze your abs by pulling belly toward spine. Keep the spine neutral, without arching the back or rotating the hips, and extend your right leg back and your left arm straight ahead. Hold for two to three seconds or as long as you can maintain form. Repeat five to six times on each side.

What it does: This exercise improves muscle balance and coordination, making it easier to keep the spine stable for everyday moves, such as walking, running, dancing, and carrying a child. It also tones your glutes, upper back, lower spine, and hamstrings. Tighter abs also keep the spine supported.

Make it harder: Gradually increase the holding time for 10 to 12 counts. For an additional challenge, add movement to the mix by slowly lifting and lowering the extended arm and leg a few inches, maintaining proper form throughout.

Back-Strengthening Exercises

By Tracy Teare

The Workout

These exercises were developed by Roberta Lenard, owner of Lenard Fitness, a personal-training company in Somerville, Massachusetts, and Anthony Carey, owner of Function First, an exercise studio in San Diego.

Hip Bridge

How to do it: Lie on your back, feet flat and hip-width apart, arms relaxed, and knees bent. Squeeze your buttocks as you lift your hips, creating a straight line from the knees to the shoulders. Hold for a slow count of two, then lower slowly. Build up to 10 to 12 repetitions.

What it does: This move counteracts the effects of too much chair time, which puts excessive pressure on the spine. It stretches the hip flexors and strengthens the muscles that stabilize the spine, including those of the lower back, the gluteals, and the large, stabilizing abdominal muscles.

Make it harder: Lift one foot off the floor and hold it straight up toward the ceiling, foot flexed, keeping the hips even. This is much more challenging, so start by holding this pose for just a few seconds. Repeat five to eight times, then switch legs.

Motivational Tip #3

Once again, I'm sharing from Kathy Smith's website. Since she already said what I'd say, why recreate it? Once again, note my bolded notes and italicized comments below.
Melissa

Find a Passion

Why is it that when we fall in love or are excited about an opportunity, we seem to enjoy boundless energy and can go for days with very little sleep?

The reason is passion. (Going to the gym isn't for everyone; nor is running, swimming or martial arts. However, find what you love and balance it with strength training, cardio and healthy eating.)

A few years ago when I was watching a PBS series hosted by Bill Moyers, it caught my attention when the great mythologist Joseph Campbell urged us to follow our "bliss." (or as Susan Ruth says, "do what feels good.") That's what I've done in my life. I follow my bliss, which I interpret to mean passion, and I encourage you to find and follow your own.

I once read a fascinating report on longevity that discussed a study of 100 people who were then in their nineties or older. The study's author said that he could find only two traits common to all 100 people. The first, that they'd eaten a consistent diet their entire lives, meaning that they'd had no extreme weight losses or gains. But it was the second trait that most captured my attention: All the old people were extremely interested in something outside themselves, whether it was religion, a hobby, or volunteering, etc. In other words, they'd found a passion.

In the early 1980s I began putting together everything I'd ever learned about exercise, fitness and health into teaching an aerobics class in Los Angeles. Though my pay was only about ten dollars per class, I considered myself incredibly rich and successful. Why? Because every day some woman, age thirty to fifty, would come up to me and admit, with tears in her eyes, that since reaching adulthood she hadn't moved her body the way she was doing in my class; she thought she'd forgotten how. But now, after sticking with it for several months, she'd begun to feel her entire life change. "I've decided I'm going to go out and get a job," was a common statement of joy. Others bragged that sex with their husbands had picked up again after a long layoff.

I could see that I was impacting these women, that their self-confidence had been raised and their well being improved. The first step had been moving their bodies, the next - well, who knows. (It's true that exercise boosts your self-confidence. If you've ever seen Vicki Virk teach bhangra (http://dholrhythms.blogspot.com/2008/06/classes.html), her passion and confidence emanate to all within her vicinity. It's contagious. Imagine your passion and how it would affect your daily life).

Later, I became the co-host of a USA Cable show called Alive & Well, on which I led a daily mini-class of exercise. Suddenly, I began receiving thousands of letters that echoed the sentiments of these women who'd come up to me in class. Heartfelt letters, describing the enormously positive changes they were experiencing. Eventually, with message boards and emails, the XX kept coming in.

To tell you the truth, the reason I continue to do what I do in my professional life is that I'm committed to helping, and inspiring the best in all people. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to hear that, for whatever reason, I've inspired someone to consider today the first day of the rest of her life.

I remember an appearance at a store in Minneapolis's Mall of America. A man and his nineteen-year-old daughter waited in line for an hour to tell me their story. It seems that, two years before, the daughter had decided to drop out of high school because of depression, feeling that her life was worthless. Distraught over his daughter's decision, about which he could do nothing legally since she was past sixteen, the father tried every form of persuasion, even bribery. Nothing worked. Then one day he happened to see a poster of mine that read, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. He bought it, along with one of my exercise videos, and brought them home to her. Resistant at first, she tried the video, and then hung the poster. Within weeks, she'd exercised out the depression and taken the slogan to heart. She stayed in school, graduated, and was, when I met her, enjoying her freshman year of college. Both father and daughter had tears in their eyes, and so did I.

Handing me both the poster and the video, the daughter said, "You made me believe I could do it, that I could do something with my life."

As we hugged and exchanged tissues, I understood the emotional connection between us: We both shared a passion for exercise, and she, like me, now understood that it had expanded her options by allowing her to notice more opportunities, and to take better advantage of them, which is exactly what it has done for me.

If she'd asked me to explain to her the cause and effect of exercise and its results, I would have said that, as scientific research has demonstrated, exercise has a healthy effect on the human mind and spirit, as well as the body.

Now, does exercise automatically lead to major life changes for everyone? No, probably not. (Certainly it does for most, but perhaps your passion is in model trains, blogging or cooking. Be passionate about something. Too many people let work rule their lives. Have a life outside of work and family. It's so important for you).

Personally, I've found that my thinking is often at its most creative when I'm working out - whether running, walking, lifting weights, spinning or hiking in the hills. It's a conscious choice, to use the time productively. I'm fully aware that a lot of people abandon their exercise programs because they get bored. They lose their passion.

"Don't you?" they ask.

Lose my passion? Never. First of all, I don't let myself get to that point, I cross-train, moving from one activity to another nearly every day. Second, I don't get bored because there's so much to think about when I'm exercising. Sure, the activity itself can be repetitive, but that very repetition frees the mind to go elsewhere.

Exercise initiates physiological reactions that also lead to subtle changes in thought processes. In the calm of an exercise-induced alpha state, I trust my mind to be more agile, so I tend to follow where it wants to lead me. During exercise, my mental state reflects the best of me from the deepest recesses of my soul.

Even when I don't need to solve a particular problem, I often use the time to take stock of my life. Am I being a good listener? Am I using my time wisely? Am I pursuing the things I want?

Other times, I spend my workout enjoying some detailed daydreaming such as getting lost in nature - enjoying the sights, smells, and sounds. And finally, I also brainstorm solutions to problems at home or work during my workout. Often this brainstorming will lead to some creative solutions.

Now all these years later, I still revel in my passion for exercise. Being connected passionately to one thing leads to other areas of passion, including one for life in general. You then naturally want to experience more, be more involved in life. You develop a healthier lifestyle, and that means not having to focus so single-mindedly on food, your weight, your body image, your finances, or whatever.

I encourage you to nurture a passion for fitness, and let that passion connect you to other dreams and other passions. From art to cooking to gardening to travel, let exercise be your guide.

Whatever your dreams, follow their trail. Go where they lead. Listen to your heart. Chase your passions.