Strengthening your Glutes – Lee Wilkinson

Strong glutes provide good pelvic stabilisation in our hips and weak glutes cause the opposite ‘pelvic drop’ in our hips as we land.

Your glutes consist of your Glute Maximus, Medius and Minimus, the latter 2 being smaller but very important in pelvis stabilisation. When we run, the glute’s job is to hold our pelvis level and stable as to give us good single leg balance and stability. The gluteus maximus is responsible for hip extension or raising your leg behind your thigh and knee behind you after pushing off with your foot. Good hip extension creates the energy of that leg swing into forwarding motion.

The problem is, without good hip extension you won’t have a powerful, efficient stride, which means your speed will be limited. The other key role that glutes play for runners is providing stability for the pelvis and knees and keep our legs, pelvis and torso aligned. If you have strong glutes, side-to-side motion will be limited and you will be a more efficient runner and less prone to injury because your energy is directed forwards. Basically, you can run faster and more efficient at the same effort level.

The Glute Medius & Minimus play a key role in the strength and stability of the hips. Whenever you take a step in running or walking, your Glute Medius has to engage and contract in order to stabilise the hip and provide single-leg stability and balance, making it an extremely important muscle.  The Glute Medius is paired with the abductors of the hip and works synergistically with the Tensor Fascia Latae (TFL) muscle.  An over-active TFL muscle is very common in a weak or inhibited Glute Medius, where we have a smaller muscle over-working due to fatigue or weakness in larger muscles which can then cause muscle imbalances.