BOOMER HUMP GYM

Jamie Lee Curtis working the glutes without John Travolta from Perfect.

If you’ve hit the gym a few years you won’t notice the Boomer Hump Gym.

If you’ve just started, stay started with grown men wearing pedal pushers, women in pantyhose/ ‘yoga’ pants.

Choose your attire. Have fun.

It’s two Olympic looking lifting partners spotting each other with hands on safety at low weight. Get the form right.

It’s probably a cultural thing. Gym culture. And you’ll get help if your form isn’t right.

You’ll see sweaty men in the stretch room laying on a mats that look like packing sponge. Doing push-ups while their hips stay down. Not girl push-up from the knees, just bending from the waist.

What’s going on?

If you ask what sort of push-up he’s doing, and don’t, he’ll tell you it’s for flexibility. That’s the best answer you’ll get. And it’s all you need to start doing the same thing.

Next to him in the stretch room a man positions himself in the front leaning rest pose carrying his weight on his toes and forearms.

It’s called planking, not an insight from a Puritan sex dream. He’s not warming up for Saturday night, he’s working his core. You’ve got a core too. It probably needs the same work.

They are missing a more important part of the anatomy.

On the other side of the stretch room wall a woman braces her upper back on an anchored bench, swings a barbell across her hips and thrusts upward, then down, then back up. It’s a move you need to learn.

If you’ve got a better way to strengthen your glutes, do it, but do this too.

Then lay down and bend one leg with your foot on a low stool, straighten the other leg to the ceiling for a series.

It’s not a dance move. You might hear the echo of ZZ Top, but it’s just another glute strengthener. It’s what you need to do once you get strong enough.

Why do you care about butt exercise? Your hips and abs (core) are related to your gluteus minimus, gluteus medius, and gluteus maximus. If you think your butt muscles sound like Roman emperors, you’re on the right track.

If you think you don’t need to work them out, you’re off the track. Baby boomers can break a hip as easily as anyone else. So can you. Build muscle around the area for a bounce instead of a break if you take a dive.

Don’t be a drag-ass. Get to the Hump Gym.