It’s true, runners are notoriously lazy asses.
It’s not our fault, it’s our lifestyle. Hours of sitting for work cause our glutes to slowly stop firing due to the reduced oxygen and tightened hip flexors. The result is less powerful running.
But most of us don’t even know we’ve gone radio silent. I mean, I can still see my ass…it’s still there and I feel it, so what do you mean my glute is not active??
Issues with poor glute activation:
- Over reliance on hamstrings
- Less control over internal rotation of legs, leading to knee injuries
- Increased lower back pain
Glute Activation Exercises
How do you activate your glutes? By including a number of glute strengthening exercises in your workouts. As with every single physical therapy move I share the key is to work these in to your existing running routine. (Pin the image below to remind you to come back to them over and over again!!)
If you include a couple as part of each warm up then you’re consistently activating the glutes, rather than trying to remember to add an entirely new workout to your schedule.
For all of these glute strengthening exercises for runners you can add a resistance band to increase the intensity. The more you incorporate the moves, the more you’ll need to find little changes to continually progress and challenge the glutes.
Clam shells (forward and reverse)
Standard clam shell is laying on your side with knees bent at 90 degress, while keeping your ankles together raise the top knee and you should feel the activation in your hips and glutes.
Additionally, do a reverse clam shell where you keep your knees together and raise the foot!! This is often overlooked, but allows you to hit a different muscle head.
Single Leg Bridge
The single leg bridge is very similar to the cook hip lift. Instead of keeping your knee bent to the chest, you keep the leg as straight as possible while lowering and lifting. Again if you start to notice the work coming from your hamstring, go back to the cook hip lift.
Bulgarian Goat Belly Squats
Standing with the kettlebell pressed in to your core, engaging the entire core, bend from the waist and then quickly power back to vertical. This is a unique, but effective way to force your entire core to work together and fire up the glutes.
Prone Leg Lifts
Lying flat on your stomach, focus on raising first one leg at a time. If the knee bends you are using too much hamstring.
Focus on keeping the leg long and raising 1 leg at a time with toes pointed. You can do 1 leg at a time, move up to both legs or using a resistance band. This increases hip extension, you should contract the core, but never feel tension in the back.
Looking for more resistance band glute exercises? Checkout this post, it dives deeper in to how and why the bands work, plus provides new moves to help you keep progressing.
And just as important is to ensure you’re warm up fires up those glutes, checkout these moves from the pro’s!
Sorry for the initial audio gang, still working through my video equipment! The moves start at 28 seconds.
Additionally, we need to ensure that our hip flexors are not tight because that can deactivate the glutes. Take a look at these stretches and these moves to stabilize your hips, which are also key to getting a hard working ass.
What is your glute?
When we talk about the gluteal area, it’s not just one large muscle, but 3: gluteal medius, maximus and minimus. Working all three is required to keep us running strong. Glute activation exercises are designed to help us engage all parts of the bum, so we can run injury free.As explained by Kelly Bagget, there are 2 main problems that occur with regard to the glutes:
Inhibited Glutes
In this situation the glutes are on permanent shutdown mode. For a variety of reasons, they don’t contract in your daily life when you walk, stand, get up off the pot, or when you move in sport. This situation has probably been overblown in the sports world, but does exist.
Overshadowed Glutes
Here the glutes DO fire correctly, but are not as strong as other lower body muscles (like the quadriceps), thus the body will use other muscles to do what the glutes SHOULD be doing, resulting in inefficient performance and often some type of pain or injury over the long haul.
Whenever you perform a movement such as a squat, lunge, deadlift, jump, sprint, or any exercise that involves several different muscle groups, the majority of work will tend to be done by the strongest of those muscle groups.
Glute Activation Test
Not sure if your glutes are firing or taking a nap?
You can try these two quick glute activation tests to find out what’s firing and what needs some extra work! Of course you’ll always learn more from going to a PT, but these are things you can do at home.
Both of these tests are demonstrated in the video below along with the glute strengthening moves (starting at 28 seconds).
Cook Hip Lift
I feel like this is a good exercise to do in general as it fires all kinds of muscles.
Laying on your back, place both feet on the floor, knees bent. Pull your right knee in to the chest and place a ball between your calf and thigh. Release your hands from the leg, while your foot on the floor is driving the heel in and the toe up off the floor, try to hold for 2 seconds when you raise up.
The ball will force you to focus on the glutes because going too high starts using your back muscles and the ball will fall. DON’T drop the ball, literally.
Are you relying on your hamstrings instead of glutes when running? Find out and fix it! #runchat Click To TweetSingle Leg Activation
There are a couple of different methods of testing via single leg activation, from squatting to balance.
Runner’s World provides this video explanation…I think it’s a decent way to test, but not as good as one’s that allow you to feel whether your glute or hamstring is activating.
PS – For anyone who cares it should really be glut, but most of us hear it with an e and thus that’s how we most commonly spell it.
Do you do exercises to counteract your daily sitting?
How often do you focus on the booty?
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Read Next: How to Undo the Effects of Sitting >>>
Megan @ Skinny Fitalicious says
As soon as I’m allowed to work more on my new hip replacement (which the surgery went awesome by the way), I’ll be working on this. My glutes are definitely weak from years of dealing with avascular necrosis.
Ellie says
I can’t wait to try these today after my bike ride. Thanks Amanda!
Diana Fitts says
Having strong glutes is so important. I once ended up with a calf injury because of my weak backside. All of our leg muscles connect to our glutes in some way and ignoring them can have unforeseen consequences. Now, I make sure that I spend some time working my glutes every week in order to keep my body in tip-top running condition.
Diana
betterthanalive.com
Patty @ Reach Your Peak says
omg my PT made me do clam shells yesterday and today i am SO SORE. I can barely walk lol. He’s like yeah clearly those muscles are never firing lol. He even gave me a band to do them on my own.
amanda says
Isn’t it so crazy how a little move can hurt so bad!! I think that’s why I like pilates, ha!
Jess @hellotofit says
These are GREAT!! Love any exercise that targets glutes. We live in a world of weak glutes :P
Laura @ This Runner's Recipes says
Focusing on my glutes is one of the reasons I think I’ve stayed mostly injury-free in my running. These are great exercises – clamshells and bridges are my favorites for glutes!
Jill @ RunEatSnap says
Most of these are exercises my PT was having me do during marathon training to help prevent knee injury. My quads are strong but my hammies are weak and it causes an imbalance.
Susie @ Suzlyfe says
I preach this to every one of my runners and clients. The majority of my issues stem from inactive glutes (damn you flat Chicago)!
Judy @ Chocolaterunsjudy says
Definitely some new stuff for me in there — looks great!
Jennifer says
“Relying on hamstrings”….distance runners use their hamstrings more than glutes. It’s an overhyped fallacy that we need strong glutes. If you’re a sprinter, yes. Glutes are activated – if they didn’t, you’d fall down.
amanda says
True, we of course need total strength for our best running. The issue here is really that many runners don’t realize their glutes aren’t firing at all, which leads to lots of hip issues and knee issues because of poor gait.
eri says
Very much needed exercises! I love all of them! I will definitely be working them out more to feel the burn!
TheDimpledRunner says
YES!!!! I really needed this and I am so grateful you made it into an easy to follow graphic!!!! THANK YOU!!
Beth says
Such good exercises! My PT says my hips and glutes are weak so I have been working on them as well as my core.
Runwright says
This is such a great post. I am pinning it to come back to because I know I didn’t soak in all the info but I do feel motivated to do some more glute work. As a big-bootied-lady, I’ve never really thought there might be lazy muscle back there. Thanks for the motivation.
Mary says
Ah the infamous inhibited glutes. I worked so hard on my glutes (and core in general) all year, then had a back injury that shut those glutes right down. Still working on reactivating them with a PT. I’ve done most of those exercises (have done so many clamshells) but have never heard of the Bulgarian goat squat, what a great name! Looks like one that would be out for me for now (forward bending). Nice work on the graphic!
Ashley @ Balancedbabe says
These are great tips! Thanks!
Ashley @ A Lady Goes West says
Such an important topic! Bridges and clam shells were always my go-to when training clients and trying to get them to activate. Thanks for this one, Amanda! :)
Dana Eden says
A big thank you for explaining LAZY GLUTES! I realised my glute muscles were not firing after MANY YEARS of running, weight training and exercising. I do have SUPER TIGHT hip flexors and although I have been doing your strengthening exercises, you reminded me the importance of STRETCHING my Hip Flexors. Thanks again. I am on MISSION GLUTES for the next 6 months