It’s been established pretty clearly that gluteal amnesia – or insufficient recruitment of the glutes – is a contributing factor to lower back and knee pain.  Fortunately, lots of people have gotten their act together and worked to get it firing correctly via both dynamic flexibility and activation drills and specific cuing during resistance training movements.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of these drills have focused strictly on activating the glutes in the sagittal plane (divides the body into left and right sides).  In the process, a lot of folks have overlooked the fact the the glutes are actually active in three planes of motion.  As you can tell from points of attachment in the picture below, the line of pull of the glutes also allow it to abduct and externally rotate the hip.

With this functional anatomy in mind, I think it’s very important for coaches and trainers to implement more multi-planar movements in warm-ups.  For more information on the what, why, and how, check out the Building the Efficient Athlete DVD Set.