If you have ever seen a clinician for any type of lower body injury or pain, chances are one of the first things they will tell you is you have weak, tight or inactive glutes. What does this mean exactly?

The gluteal muscles are made up of three muscles, the gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus and the gluteus medius. The gluteus maximus (biggest and most superficial muscle) is the primary extender of the hip (bringing your leg back with your knee straight), the minimus and medius primary movement is hip abduction (taking the leg away from the body sideways)

Many people are told that they have trouble activating or using their glute muscles, especially minimus and medius. The four exercises I highly recommend are a full proof way to activate and use these muscles correctly as you’re likely to find.

Now why is this important?

In my opinion a lot of our true strength stems from around our hips, if we are strong through the core, gluteals and upper legs it makes many exercises easier and improves the ability to complete more advanced movements. For example, all of the squat and lunge variations you can think of, which can lead to the more complicated variations of Olympic lifts.

From a lifestyle sense having the hip and leg strength makes so many daily tasks easier, even our ability to go for a jog or a long walk without the worry of tiring quickly or dealing with soreness the day after.

Exercises

1.     Bridge with resisted external rotation (using a band)

Use a band and put it around your legs just above your knees. Lie on your back with your knees bent and arms relaxed by your side. Raise up your hips off the ground and lower down slowly. Keep constant resistance on the band, the band will try to push your knees together, keep them apart to engage the resisted external rotation.

2.     Stiff knee crab walk

Use a band and put it around your legs just above your knees. Standing up tall side step with long steps and STIFF KNEES. Stiff knees are the absolute key here. As soon as we bend our knees we bring in other supporting muscles within the quads to help with the sideways movement. Keep the knees stiff and you will isolate the gluteal muscles.

3.     Side step and squat

Use a band and put it around your legs just above your knees. Start with your feet shoulder width apart, starting with the right side take a small step away to your right and then perform a squat to a depth you’re comfortable and then step back to the starting position with your left leg. Complete this exercise the prescribed amount leading with each side. This exercise can be easily progressed by adding a kettlebell to add load to the squat.

4.     Side stepping over hurdles

Use a band and put it around your legs just above your knees. I understand not everybody has some hurdles just lying around and your gym might not have any either. You can perform this exercise without them. Firstly, lead with the right side, raise your knee up to a high march position, swing over the hurdle and repeat with the left, then take two long steps (same movement as the stiff knee crab walk) toward the next hurdle and repeat for the prescribed number of reps on both sides. If you don’t have access to hurdles just imagine there is something you have to swing your leg over.

Four great exercises for the gluteal muscles that I prescribe regularly. All you need is a band. There is a very common theme of putting the band around your legs above your knees, this provides the resistance for hip abduction (leg to the side) and external rotation which will active and use the gluteals.

These exercises can and should be apart of any good program and any are a great warm up before completing any type of squat, lunge or deadlift variation.