Side Lying Hip-Extended Clamshell

I have a butt-complex.   It may be driven by an ex-girlfriend who told me that my derrière wasn’t there, and it may also be that most of popular fitness culture emphasizes a butt that looks like a sandbar.  That’s not cool.

Operation Build-A-Butt has been paired with the “Pick Up Heavy Shit” Plan, and I’m making progress with both goals.  During a recent Mastermind meeting with Billy Rom and Laura Neuburger we were discussing range of motion and activation in the hip and Billy brought to my attention that, in short, my left glute medius has been taking a nap.

Enter the hip-extended sidelying clamshell as demonstrated by Suzanne Somers’ cat:

Rather that wave my foot around for 40 reps like is typical of ‘feel the burn’ booty programs, I’ll typically focus on 6-8 reps with a 1-3 breath hold at the top of each rep.  That’s usually 6-18 seconds.  I’m also performing twice as many reps on one side as the other, as to the imbalanced-to-create-balance PRI approach.  If you were to employ the same approach it would be as follows:

• Left Side Clamshell x 6 breaths
• Right Side Clamshell x 6 breaths
• Left Side Clamshell x 6 breaths
• High-five self for being awesome:

The actual exercise allows you to fire up the hips in a position that prevents other muscles from taking over, which is what tends to happen, at least in my own case.  The hip-extended variation looks like this:

If you’re having issues with your hips while you squat, some hip specific work may very well help out with that.  Specifics depend on the circumstances of your personal quest, but for me the hip-extended sidelying clamshell has been money for helping me squat more comfortably in recent weeks.