6 Best Exercises to Re-Build Your Glutes

If you’ve ever been to a physiotherapist before or had any sort of knee, hip or back issue, you’ve probably been told something along the lines of “your glutes are not firing” or “your glutes aren’t strong enough.” But what does this mean? How do you start activating and strengthening the glute muscles? And why are the glutes so important?

The Importance of Your Glute Muscles

Your three glute muscles – gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus – all play a role in the movement and stabilisation of the hip and pelvic region. That is, they help move your hip joint as well as controlling unwanted movement. They are an important muscle group when we are walking and running, balancing on one leg (which we do much more than we realise – take going up stairs for example!), as well as common movements like bending, squatting and lifting.

Your glutes stabilise the pelvis and legs when performing all of these movements – they help take the load off of the back and the knee. This is why the glutes are commonly identified as a causative factor of injury and why they are one of the most targeted muscle groups for exercise.

But I Train Glutes All the Time!!

Just because you’re doing an exercise to target your glute, doesn’t necessarily mean your glute is working during that exercise. The body is an expert in getting stuff done, whether it’s doing it right or compensating in some way. For this reason, you could be doing all the right exercises but training the wrong muscles!

Common reasons the glutes may not be firing during exercises (and what you should look out for when training) are:

• Flat feet – flat or pronated feet will rotate the leg inward, jamming up the hip joint and stretching the glute, making it harder to fire
• Stiff hips – similar to above, stiff hips make it hard to put the body in the correct position to fire the glutes, and often means we are using our hip flexors much more through most movements
• Poor movement patterns – stiffness and/or weakness leads to poor form and technique. With repetition and time, this poor technique and pattern is learned and strengthened by the body and is happening even if you are not exercising – when you squat to pick something up, walk down the street or go up the stairs, your body is responding to how you move and learning patterns of movement

Easy Ways to Test If You Are Training Correctly

• Are you feeling an exercise in your glute area? If the muscle is working, you should be feeling it!
• Can you stand on one leg and hold your pelvis level and steady? This is known as a Trendelenburg sign and is a good indicator of glute stability
• Can you sit back into your hips in a squat or hip hinge? An inability to weight-bear through the heels is a sign that you are ‘anteriorly dominant’ or using the muscles on the front of the body too much

The 6 Best Exercises for Your Glutes

Here are 6 exercises that will help you activate, strengthen and control your glute muscles. They start easy and get progressively harder:

This article was written by Physiotherapist – Sam Crossland, from our Precision Physio Concord clinic. If you would like more information, or feel you might benefit from a session with one of the Precision Physio team, you can either come into our clinics, or work with us online.

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• Customer Support Centre: 02 8607 4000
• Precision Physio Concord: 02 9736 3950
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