Smarter Sweat Fitness Blog

6/29/2020

The Importance of Strong Glutes: 5 Big Reasons to Work on Your Glute Strength

Strong glute muscles mean fewer injuries and improved performance (and a nice butt).

Round, perky glutes play a huge role in aesthetics — but have you ever thought about why a nice set of buns is important for your health, performance, and longevity?

In the chance you haven’t, we’ll get to the five big reasons why you should focus on your glute strength in just a bit.

First, you should know what we are talking about here. The gluteal complex is the powerhouse of your body. It also happens to be the biggest and strongest muscle in the body - at least, it should be.

It doesn’t matter if you're an athlete or not either: All humans need strong glutes. Because, whether you realize it or not, your glutes do so much for you every single day.

Need to extend your hip? Laterally rotate your hip? Abduct your hip? Posteriorly tilt your pelvis? Sit on the toilet? Swing a golf club? Take a step? That’s right: Literally every step you take your glutes are working to stabilize your hips and lower back.

To say the least, your glutes are pretty important. To prove it, here are five huge reasons why glute strength should be at the forefront of your training program.

6/22/2020

Tempo Training for Weightlifting: The Key to Long-Lasting Strength Gains (No, Really)

If you really want to get stronger, stop speeding through your workouts.

Close-up of a red 45-pound weight plate on a barbell, on the floor of a warehouse gym. Man exercises in the background.

Tempo training can be the key to building strength and muscle. Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash.

What is tempo training in weightlifting?

Have you ever seen a workout with an @ sign followed by four numbers? That’s tempo.

If you didn’t know before, you, like most people, probably just ignored the number sequence and did the lifts as you normally would. Little did you know, you were missing out on serious strength and muscle gains!

Those four little numbers are the magic behind effective resistance training. They specify the duration of the eccentric phase and concentric phase, as well as how long you hold the top and bottom positions.

In short, tempo training basically defines how fast or slow you move through an exercise.

6/14/2020

Smarter Sweat Stands With You: Our Stance on Equality and Justice, Plus Inclusivity in Fitness

A tan graphic with serif and cursive lettering in brown and white reads: Smarter Sweat Stands With You

Smarter Sweat Stands With You: Our Stance on Equality, Justice, and Inclusivity in Fitness

We started Smarter Sweat in May 2020: We had a fantastic launch planned for June first, and we’d been working hard on back-end operations as well as content and product.

We were excited.

But then — in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter uprising — everything we had worked on felt so excruciatingly unimportant.

Who were we to talk about fitness and wellness when the entire country was reeling in disgust, pain, and confusion?

Who were we — two white girls with very privileged lives thus far — to ask people to pay attention to us and our new endeavor?

It felt wrong, distasteful, and hurtful to follow through with our launch of Smarter Sweat. So instead, we invested the time and energy we would have put into this launch into checking ourselves, unlearning and relearning, researching Black history, and figuring out how we can use our new business to foster love, peace, and justice.

Most importantly, we used this time and energy to figure out a way to give back to the Black and POC community — especially Black and POC females, who have historically been excluded from the fitness and wellness industries.

About Smarter Sweat

Smarter Sweat is a fitness company built from the ground up by fitness experts Amanda Capritto and Ashley Phantz. Amanda and Ashley are both dead-set on cutting through the clutter of the fitness industry and providing raw, real, utterly honest information about fitness and wellness.

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The Importance of Strong Glutes: 5 Big Reasons to Work on Your Glute Strength

Strong glute muscles mean fewer injuries and improved performance (and a nice butt).

Tempo Training for Weightlifting: The Key to Long-Lasting Strength Gains (No, Really)

If you really want to get stronger, stop speeding through your workouts.

What is tempo training in weightlifting?

Smarter Sweat Stands With You: Our Stance on Equality and Justice, Plus Inclusivity in Fitness

About Smarter Sweat

Archives

Categories

YOUR CART

The Importance of Strong Glutes: 5 Big Reasons to Work on Your Glute Strength

Strong glute muscles mean fewer injuries and improved performance (and a nice butt).​

Tempo Training for Weightlifting: The Key to Long-Lasting Strength Gains (No, Really)

If you really want to get stronger, stop speeding through your workouts.

​What is tempo training in weightlifting?

Smarter Sweat Stands With You: Our Stance on Equality and Justice, Plus Inclusivity in Fitness

About Smarter Sweat

Archives

Categories

Strong glute muscles mean fewer injuries and improved performance (and a nice butt).

What is tempo training in weightlifting?