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Hello! I'm just looking for a quick bit of guidance please! I've done my research but I keep getting it wrapped round my neck and all the information is in different places so I could really do with an easy set out list! Basically which different free weight and machine exercises for your glutes fall under these 4 different categories? - Hip hyperextension - Hip abduction - Hip external rotation - Hip extension Thankyou so much for any help or answers! Emmie

Hey yo from Canada. I'm around my goal weight, but I'm wanting to focus on my least favorite part of myself: my legs and glutes. I really need to kick my own ass, pun intended. The basic hip thrusts on the floor aren't doing anything. So many workouts I see on Pinterest and whatever look really basic and I don't feel any burn from doing them? I'm watching my form too... What are your favorite/most effective exercises for lower body? I've heard hiking is great too, so I might add that to my routine. Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks!

Every action we take in life has consequences. If we choose to stay or leave, if we choose to speak up or stay silent, if we choose to indulge in a treat or stick to a piece of fruit… Last month I played a hella lot of Life is Strange and it had a big impact on me. As I thought about this challenge, I realized that I often let myself slack off here because what is the real consequence? Who cares if I don’t succeed? Who cares if I don’t run or eat well or decide not to follow my goals? I have things I desire for myself, but I am not even doing a great job of holding myself accountable for them. Unlike Max, I can’t just rewind time to make better decisions. I need to make them in the moment, and I need to stop being so passive about it all. So here is the goal - this challenge is about reminding myself that my choice of action or inaction matters in the long run. It is still my decision to make, but that action will have consequences either way. Good or bad - and it is up to me to make the best choices to reach my goals. The things I want for myself are fairly simple. The path to getting to them is a bit more rocky. I want to be faster. I want to be more flexible, and I want to make better choices about what I put into my body to fuel it. Every day, I have to make choices and take action. Every day I have to live with the choices I made in the previous days and how they affect the day after that. It’s time to start living as though everything matters, because I’m tired of where I am and how little has changed. I am in control. I get to choose. This is my story. Episode One :: Chrysalis - Get Faster Workout following the “10 Week Get Faster Plan” from Born to Run 5 runs per week Do a Mile Test before the challenge start to get the baseline (calculations are based on current fastest mile time) Do a Mile Test at the end of the challenge (will guage a midway point of the Get Faster Plan) Episode Two :: Out of Time - Get Stronger Glute Work 2x per week Abs 1x per week Arm Work 2x per week Episode Three: :: Chaos Theory - Get Hydrated 2 cups of coffee only No soda 64oz water a day, minimum Episode Four :: Dark Room - Get Flexible Yoga Series - Any Hip/Leg Program 2-3x per week Episode Five :: Polarize - Get Better Keep journaling Make time for meditation once a week Do something for yourself once a week.

Hypothetically speaking, in January, a friend and I are going to put together a ridiculous silks/rope routine that is going to be heavily focused around amazing feats of strength--straight arm/straight leg inverts, flag, front and back body balance, iron cross, etc. That means in the next couple months it's time to tighten up, get stronger, and generally stop faffing about so I don't make a fool of myself. I've just gotten back from a work conference during which there was tons of food and beer and I re-gained the 5 lbs I've lost over the past 6-8 weeks. Hopefully most of it is water and weirdness from being outside my normal dietary and sleep routine and I'll get back down quickly. In the mean time, let's make January as easy as possible by doing hard things now. Dietary Control No drinking - as mentioned last challenge, I am drifting toward a place I don't like with alcohol consumption. Fortunately, after 4-5 days straight filled with lots of beer, I'm ready to give my liver a break. No alcohol for the duration of this challenge. Stay within calories - Beer, crepes, fried everything--the last week has been a smorgasbord of poor food choices. Time to make some better ones and stay below my goal calories. Protein consumption is a secondary goal, but no stringent delineations on this one, more like assessing where my current intake lies in order to figure out where my diet needs tweaking. Strength and Endurance Squat - I love circus, but it's hugely upper body focused. I'm missing my squat booty. Time to address that. Lower body workout at least once a week with a glute focus. May bring back some Strong Curves workouts in order to focus here. Pull ups - Hugely important for circus, of course. Throwing in a few reps of chins/pull ups during my muggle workout (I think I'm realistically only going to get one per week) will help in a grease the groove kind of fashion. Sub-maximal sets, lots of rest between, no where near failure (I get some pretty good tendonitis in my elbow when I over work these, so I'm going to be super cautious) My Circus, My Monkeys Open gym - Every Monday. Work on dramatic feats of circus strength. Eventually, choreograph and plan routine with Circus buddy. Class - Every Wednesday. Go. Learn. Exhaust yourself. Splits - 2 minute split drills each open gym and after each muggle workout I think that about covers it...

Hi all. I started NF 2 weeks ago and am loving the various quests. I am a fairly fit 51 year old who enjoys various challenges. However, like many, I am want to be more fit/flexible/athletic than I currently am. I teach (or at least try to) grades 9-12 so being an active role model is important to me. I also have two sons (ages 11 and 13). Being able to keep up with them (and my husband) is a constant challenge. My question today is about a gluteal injury. My left buttock is quite sore (last 6 weeks; think I may have overstretched in pigeon pose). It does not keep me from activity but bending over to touch my toes or any other similar stretches are quite uncomfortable. I have been icing and Adviling and doing mild stretches the last few days. Any other advice so that this injury doesn't become an excuse for me to quit? Thank you, Sherry, Warrior Princess

Hi I'm Raptron. I do stuff. This upcoming challenge, I have a good amount of travel planned (Maine for Memorial Day weekend, lakehouse in the Poconos in a couple of weeks, work trip to Long Island, and NYC for Pride!) so keeping on top of my workout schedule will be a bit trickier than normal. None of these goals are new goals, but not all of them are easy for me (see: cleaning + running blahhhh) so they're back in the rotation! 1. Bumble butt Glute accessory every lifting workout 2. Balancing on a flower Balance work 2x per week 3. Search for nectar Run at least once a week (NP counts!) 4. Keep a tidy hive Dishwasher stuff 2x per week Pantry deep clean

After a disappointing previous challenge, it time to go back to the basics again. 1. Workout five times a week: As long as I workout for more than a few minutes, I'm going to call it a workout. This could be Karate training, lower body work, lifting heavy metal objects or any type of mobility work. 2. Tai Cheng three times a week: Since this really helps my Karate, it's time to get back to doing this on a regular schedule. I am trying to be more realistic with my current workload and three times is attainable. 3. Static and moving Karate stance training interval style three time a week: This is one area that had suffered the most over the last 7 weeks. I can still get into good stances but moving out of them is more difficult since I haven't been training. Extra credit - Meditation three times a week: The extra stress is not doing me any good at this point and I really need to find some way to relax. Call of Duty used to work well but I need to put my mind in a much calmer state. I have a couple of apps on my iPhone that could be useful and I do like the simple breathing meditation at bedtime but I have to do it. Life goal: Write 150 words a week for my blogs: My writing has really taken a back seat over the last few months and I have to get back to it. I know that a 150 words a week is not much but it's better than zero so I am setting the bar lower to get a win here.

Hello friends! I missed NF a lot but I think I needed a break since I had fallen in the habit of writing magnificent goals and not ever actually working on them. For those of you who are joining me for the first time, I have done some boxing but I'm currently an honorary monk since I'm not actively training a martial art. Right now I'm pretty active with my new rugby team. Last summer I realized that I was out of shape, about to turn 40 and would likely never play rugby again. Four days after my 40th, I got a message about a new team and would I be interested in helping get them started. I quickly went from "helping out" to "starting player". I'm hoping to transition into coaching soon. I still love playing but I really am getting kind of old and also really too out of shape. So that's why I'm here. As of right now, I need to keep playing since we need my experience and my brute strength on the field. (I AM the brute squad) Goal 1) Rugby practice 2-3 times per week. It will depend on how many practices we have scheduled. Goal 2) Gym 3 times per week. I'm doing rowing to build cardio endurance and strength training. Goal 3) Food. My eternal struggle. As usual, I know what I want to do, I just need to find the right way to structure it for a goal. I will get that sorted before the challenge starts. Goal 4) Rugby knowledge. I've got a level 200 coaching certification clinic on July 30. I need to make sure I'm prepared for it. This will include studying the materials, assessing my own strengths and weaknesses as a potential coach and coming up with a plan to improve my weak areas.

Okay, since week 1 is winding down, seems like I should post goals or something. I really hadn't planned for this one so my goals are probably not going to be all that SMART. I just had such a huge crash and burn at the end of last year. I just need to rebuild some habits and then really attack my long term goals once I get a plan going. The long term goal is to do the things I need to do to continue playing rugby into my 40s. The first 2 steps to that are to get my weight down and my cardiovascular endurance up. I also have a problem with glute activation so I need to work on that too. Turns out it's hard to push 1500 pounds of scrum off you when your glutes don't want to participate. Goal 1) I've got a gym routine that is Coach approved. I will do it 3 times per week. It involves weights and long, slow cardio. Goal 2) Attack the lazy glutes. I've got a routine set up to attack this whole area of my body. It's drawn from Joe DeFranco's Limber 11 and a website I found about hamstring dominance. I'm not sure how many days a week I need to be working on this. Will check that out. Goal 3) Food. Sigh. The neverending problem for me. For this challenge I'm going to work on getting back to tracking using MyFitnessPal. Just starting to track usually helps me cut down on a lot of stuff. I also want to work on identifying the triggers or habit cues that are causing my binges. That seems good for now. I need to take some new measurements. I haven't done that in a while. I know that my weight is roughly the same but clothes are fitting me differently so it seems like the fat is moving around a little.

Quest 1, Get the Glutes: In order to achieve muscular balance she will: Continue to perform 4 strength exercises 4 times a week. Two days a week, can be on one of these 4 days or on what would normally be a rest day, perform 3 glute specific accessory work (clam shells, monster walks, seated hip abduction, hip thrusts, glute bridges, etc). Be a bad-ass like Captain Jack O'Neill. Quest 2, Give up the Gut All dem proteins making me feel bloated. Eat 1 cup of vegetables at lunch and at dinner, or in general twice a day. Even with a Goa'uld in his body, Teal'C had the body of a god. Quest 3, Drink all the waters For so many health reasons and more, I'm supposed to drink like a fish. I'm sure my skin, gut, glutes, mental power, will all thank me later. Water is easy on weekdays (drink at least 5 (22 oz) bottles of water) and hard on weekends. But during the last challenge I found it hard to have a water goal that was only 1 day a week, so easy to forget! So this challenge it will be ever day. Drink 4 of my water bottles (22 oz) per day, or around 90 oz of water. Quest 4, Go after the Goals I need to focus more at work, do the difficult tasks that are easy to put aside until they become urgent and uncomfortable. Every morning at work, write down three things I want to accomplish (3 goals) that can get done in 1 day, even if confronted with random events. Do these 3 things. Be smart and accomplished like Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter.

Main Goals: Weight Loss, Increased Flexibility, Best. Ass. Ever. Challenge One (continued from previous) - Food Prep: I will make 3 Crock Pot meals and freeze into lunch portions at the beginning of the Month. I will prep fruit/veggies ahead of time to make packing a healthy lunch easier. Last Challenge I actually pre-prepped TOO MUCH food, and it was a scramble to eat things before they went bad. On the other hand, there was a lack of easy breakfast food. Breakfast options to be determined and prepped. Challenge Two - Muscle Building: Glutes and Pecs! Pecs, you say? Why does a busty gal like me need pecs? Well because they hold up boobs, duh! I will kick gravity's ass...Also, I'd like a nice round booty, so lots of squats in my future. Need to research more exercises that work pecs, and increase my push-ups. I used to be able to do 3 sets of 10 regular push-ups, now it's more like 1 set of 10 knee push-ups! Ugh. Hate lost progress! My Tues/Thurs workouts at the office gym will focus on these areas, plus my other usual stuff, plus I will do at least 10 squats and 5 push-ups per day at home on my non-gym days. So, good ol' T&A for this Challenge Challenge Three - Flexibility: Yoga! Swimming! Primal Movement! Been spending too much time in the gym and on the couch, and not enough time doing REAL things. I've built some muscle (I can feel it under the squish), but now I have decreased movement! Ooops! So more stretching, more twisty pretzel yoga poses, more hiking/climbing/crawling/walking, and more swimming. I went swimming yesterday and I've got nicely sore muscles all over. I love how you find muscles you forgot you had when you go swimming I will go hiking and/or swimming at least once a week. Personal Challenge: Get move involved in the NF Community by reciprocating all the support I've been getting. I'm going to try to follow the challenges of my regular followers more. I won't be able to jump right in and read EVERYTHING, because some people already have 3-4 pages!!!! (omg! TL;DR!!!), but I will keep up with the updates, if not the replies. Now that I'm done the super exciting can't-put-this-book-down series I've been reading for the last two months, I can return to the real world a bit more and actually interact with human beings again. I might even try to get a Vancouver Meetup going, though there's only been one successful one that I know of.

From the title of this challenge, you might have guessed that I am going to be working on improving my kicks again. Even though my kicks have improved a great deal over the last few months, I know that they can be even better. 1 - Mobility: Mobility is still at the top of the list and again, Cheechoe's hip routine is going to be the main focus. I have seen more improvement in the short time I have been doing her routine than I have in years of trying other routines and fixes. I am still going to do the resets because they loosen me up. The goal is to do the OS resets at least five days a week and Cheechoe's hip routine at least three days a week with at least one day in between sessions and not on a Karate class day. 2 - Do 2 full Karate workouts at home each week. Same as last time but this time I want to really clean up my basics. I want to learn to relax, tense and relax all my movements as quickly as possible and the Karate workout that I am currently, which is loaded with basics, is a good place to work on this concept. 3 - Do at least 2 support workouts per week. What I mean by support is glute / leg / core focused workouts with some upper-body thrown in for good measure. Since I hurt my back this last time around, I need to get back, pun intended, to making my body bulletproof. I have a workout structure in mind already and I will share it once I get the details figured out. Life goal: Focus my mind on finding a job. Being out of work for the last 6+ months has taken a toll not only my on bank account but also my mind. I have applied for many jobs, that looked like a great fit, but have often seen no response or the "you have more experience than we are looking for." With that said, I am pulling out all the stops to find either contract work, full time, work from home, freelance work or a combination of all four.

The actual quote from Firefly is "You're like a trained ape. Without the training." but I want to be better than that and be like the trained ape that actually has the training. Main quest: Like all of my other challenges, my main quest is to improve my kicks. To be more specific, my side thrust kicks have always been my main goal but I need to add roundhouse kicks to this goal because they need help too. 1 - Mobility: Cheechoe's hip routine is going to be the main focus here but I also want to add the resets to make my hips work better. The goal is to do both of these at least 4 days each week.2 - Back to basics: Do 2 full Karate workouts at home each week in addition to my Karate class. Before the Karate workout do a strength movement and at the end of the workout do a core/ab movement. (modified 8/14/14) 3 - Karate specific: Total of 1000 kicks and punches per week. Life quest: Spend more time with my wife Spending the time walking with the Typhoon and doing something fitness related while doing it really helps put my mind in a better place and it also helps loosen up my hips. Walk 5 days a week.

I have lost track of how many challenges I have done now. I am pretty sure this is number seven or maybe eight but either way, I am back again to cause trouble as much as possible. Many of you might be wondering why I titled this challenge, Here comes the Boom. The main reason that is that I just watched that movie again and it is stuck in my head. I also like the title because that is what I plan on doing with my Karate training. It's time to bring the boom and literally, kick my kicks up a notch. The last challenge really brought my kicks up to the next level but it's not time to rest, it's time to bring it and that's what the plans are for this challenge. BOOM!! Here is the song with a video of parts of the movie that I found on Youtube. Here is my challenge: As always, this is a work in progress. 1: Keep up the kicks or keep the kicks up..... My side thrust kicks are better than ever before and now that I know I can improve them, it's time to get real. My plan is to do anything and everything to keep improving my kicks. I spent a lot of time working Tabata magic on my glutes and hips over the previous six weeks and that is the plan for this challenge. I plan on using the same movements, side leg raises, donkey kicks, glute bridges and a few others to keep things going but I also want to add stationary side thrust kicks at least five times a week to the mix. I was only doing the kicks once in a while but this time, I need to do them more often. I don't do much more than five or six kicks with each leg but that needs to be done more often. This includes getting more stretching in, especially HFS. 2: Learn to do the Turkish get up..... I bought a really good book by Pavel about how to do the Turkish getup and kettlebell swings and I need to use it. Even though I read it from cover to cover, I am fighting with the getup. I plan on starting small and doing partial getups but by the end of six weeks, I would like to have a full getup on both sides. 3: Pull up or chin up, time to get back to the basics.... I used to be pretty good at pull ups and chin ups when I was young. About 30 years ago, I could bang out over 20 at a around the same bodyweight I am at now and I would like to revisit those numbers again. I am not sure if my shoulders will let me see those numbers again but I would like this challenge to be a test pilot to see if I can find some of that former glory. 4: Write not wrong..... I have been doing a lot more writing than before but I am still not publishing enough. With that said, I really need to publish more blog posts across all my blogs. I also plan on finishing up the text for my first kata book. I know that I planned on finishing the kata book a long time ago but this time is different, right? Yep, it is. More to come....

So, looking to add some solid glute exercises to my routines without the need for fancy equipment (looking at you GHR). I was thinking Glute Bridges, although that one is awkward enough that I think I'd have to do that one at home (nothing like power-humping a barbell in public). I only have access to a single leg curl machine, and I feel like form is very inconsistent with that since it's a standing leg curl machine without any sort of brace to keep things in check. So leg curls are pretty much out. I believe KB swings have been known to be a solid exersice for glutes, but don't have any access to KBs right now (although picking up a single one wouldn't be out of the budget). Anyone got any other exercises they like?

Hi guys, I just recently started (about 3 weeks in) working on the Angry Birds workout as my first strength training routine. There has been definite progression in all of my fields other then squats. My problem there is that I was squatting down as far as I could go with my heels on the floor and still just breezing through all of the squat levels without major issues. I could tell something wasn't quite right but couldn't figure it out until I had my husband watch me do them. He nicely informed me that I wasn't squatting nearly enough to get the real benefit of the exercise (which was what I was afraid of.) Here's my problem, I actually can't get my butt to go down any further without completely losing my balance. Looking up the issue has brought me to believe that my ankles are not flexible enough and are preventing my knees from being able to shift far enough forward. Does that sound right? I'd like some advice on how to fix my ankle problem (if that is what it is) and also what I should do about my squats in the meantime. If real squats won't work (for now), is there another good bodyweight exercise that I can do that exercises the same muscle groups? I'd like to keep improving my lower body along with my other areas. Thanks!

Went to the physio* because I was bored of the Auld Knee limiting my activity: I don't want to be the guy who used to do stuff. Turns out it's not really the knee at all - the pain is in-and-down of the knee where hamstrings and one thigh muscle attach, which has vanilla tendon overuse. We're confirming that with lots of ice over a week. Why are those muscles overused? It's not the Squat Of Death -- it's just lazy, lazy, forever-lazy weak glutes, particularly on that side. I anticipate a lot of glute bridges in my future and doubtless everything that Brett Contreras has ever written. -- and the sad glute diagnosis fits too well with everything, from my little flat arse (no oly-lifter bubble booty) to my pedalling style (mash! smash! quad-dominant) and how antiinflammatories make all the world's woes better. Watch me run, it looks like a wardrobe on legs. I'm very happy that it's not the knee - like Baz Luhrmann says, you'll miss them when they're gone. I'm happy it's not just my silly sit-on-folded leg office habit, or just weight-related. Most importantly, this can be trained up. I can glute bridge my way to sky-humping a Volkswagen, it's just muscles. And wow, that should make my Squat of Death enter a whole new circle of Hell. * UK Explainer: NHS physiotherapists are free but their focus is on health, rather than performance, and there's a long wait. It's traditional for sports problems to go to private clinics, where the cost is about £40 a session.