Elite Physique The New Science of Building a Better Body

64 Elite Physique
his opponent. Any weakness in that chain, from the right foot to the right fist,
will diminish his performance. Put another way, you need a strong lower body
to be a powerful athlete.
In a bodybuilding contest, judges look for proportional development between
the upper and lower body. From a physique standpoint, there are few things
that look as odd as an incredibly muscular upper body paired with skinny legs.
Indeed, lower body training is not only necessary to be powerful but also visually
impressive.
The glutes get plenty of press these days, and for good reason. Your glutes
consist of three muscles: gluteus minimus, gluteus medius, and gluteus maximus
(see figure 5.1). Collectively, they perform three actions at the hip: extension,
abduction, and external rotation. Weakness in the glutes has been linked to pain
in the low back, hip, and knee. Of the three, the gluteus maximus is the largest,
strongest muscle in the body. Or it should be, anyway. That’s because the maximus
is responsible for a myriad of performance and orthopedic benefits, including
the overall shape of your butt.
Now let’s cover two primary categories of lower body exercises—exercises
that emphasize the hip versus the quads and exercises performed on one leg
versus two legs.
Gluteus
medius
Gluteus
maximus
Gluteus
minimus
FIGURE 5.1 Gluteal muscles.
Hip Versus Quad Emphasis
E8315/Waterbury/F05.01/670191/mh-R2
The way you perform any given exercise can have a profound effect on which
muscles are emphasized. For example, a squat can be performed with a relatively
vertical or horizontal trunk angle as shown in figure 5.2.
The trunk angle affects which lower body muscles are emphasized during
a squat. When your trunk is more vertical, your knees must travel forward to
maintain balance (i.e., quad emphasis). Conversely, when your trunk shifts farther
forward, your hips travel backward and very little forward movement of
the knees is required to maintain balance (i.e., hip emphasis).
Basically speaking, maintaining a trunk angle of greater than 60 degrees at the
bottom of a squat emphasizes the quadriceps more than the hips, while a trunk
angle of less than 60 degrees emphasizes the hips. You can use the shin angle
as a guide for determining which muscles are emphasized. The shins travel forward
to emphasize the quadriceps (see figure 5.2a) but remain mostly vertical to
emphasize the hips (see figure 5.2b).