How To Activate Your Glutes - Online Training

How To Activate Your Glutes (5 Exercises To Cover All)

Gluteal Muscle Anatomy

As we know there are three gluteal muscles in every buttock – the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. Collectively all three are referred to as the glutes.

Gluteus Maximus: The largest of all three gluteal muscles and gives our hips and butt shape. It is typically broken into two subdivisions (upper and lower glute max).
Gluteus Medius: Located near or slightly above the hip joint, forms the middle layer of the glutes and completely covers the gluteus minimus muscle. there are three subdivisions for the gluteus medius: anterior, middle and posterior regions. Each have different roles during functional movement.
Gluteus Minimus: The smallest of the gluteal muscles and is located under the gluteus medius. it is often lumped into the same category of the gluteus medius because it shares the same origin and insertion points and performs similar movement.

Function Of The Glutes

Hip Extension: Hip extension is when we extend or open the hip joint. We do so during hip thrust, standing from a squat position and rasing the torso from a deadlift. we can also extend the hip by moving the leg behind the body as we do in kick backs.
Hip Abduction: Hip abduction happens when we move the leg laterally away from the body as we do in banded lateral walks.
Hip External Rotation: Hip external rotation occurs when we turn our knee outward or rotate our thigh away from the midline.

Why Should We Activate The Glutes?

Workout Preperation: Activating the glutes prior to a game or a workout prepares the body for heavy lifts and complex tasks such in high sports competition by stabilizing the hip.
Develop Body Awareness: I hear this feedback often during glutes activation where clients say “I’m feeling muscles that I’ve never felt before in my hip. Doing glute activations helps clients develop better movement mechanics, body awareness and pelvis control.
Strengthening The Glutes: Glute activation exercises can feel like a workout on their own for many because they lack strength and proper development in the hip area. This can serve as a great starting point to strengthen the glutes prior to loaded compound movements.
Posture Improvement: Perhaps the most important reason for many. Can you believe that something as simple as sitting for long periods of time can actually effect how you train/play and even cause an injury? In our modern lifestyle, long sitting hours is something the majority of our society experience from long working hours on an office desk to long hours of driving to siting down on the couch to rest for the rest of the day. This is leading the hip flexor muscles to be tightened which causes the opposing muscles (glutes) to be weakened. Same thing on the lower leg end happens with your calves and shin muscles. Because the body acts as a chain in movements, having imbalance in one part effects the rest of the body leading to injury possibilities in your back, ankle and knees. Working on strengthening the posterior chain that is weakened because of the sitting lifestyle can improve posture, restore movement and reduce the likeliness of injuries.

5 Exercises For Glute Activation

1. Banded Clamshells

Lay down on your side with your hip positioned at 90 degrees from your body and knees at 90 degree flexion.
Brace your core, tense your glutes and wrap your hands together to avoid upper body compensations.
Lift the upper knee away from the bottom one while keeping your feet in contact with each other.
Hold for 1 second and return to starting position to repeat the movement for the intended repetitions.

2. Banded Lateral Walks

Stand with feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent and feet straight ahead.
Place a band on the widest part of your feet or at your ankles level.
Take small steps sideways while maintaining feet and knees straight ahead.
Repeat in the opposite direction.

NOTE: The knees and feet must stay straight ahead during movement to stay in the Abduction pattern to avoid external rotation.

3. Banded Hip Thrust

Start by sitting on the floor with the legs extended and leaning back against the long edge of a flat bench.
place a band around your thighs above knee level.
Flex the hips and knees to place the feet on the floor, the knees will be at approximately 90-degree angle in this position.
Adjust the body to line up the upper back with the top edge of the bench pad.
Push both feet into the floor with the weight shifted towards the heels. This action will extend the hip and cause the body to rise vertically (if you’re unable to do this and you feel that you’re pushing through your toes; Then lift your toes off the floor and stay on your heels).
As you’re reaching the top position push your knees away from each other to apply tension on the band.
At that position the gluteals contract maximally at full extension position of the hip in addition to the external rotation tension applied on the band.
Lower the hip down to the floor and repeat from step 5.

4. Banded Feet Pull Apart

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Sit on a box or a bench where your feet are off the ground with 90 degree flexion on both the hip and the knee.
Place a light band on the widest part of your feet.
Place a light surface object (band/towel etc.) between your knees.
Keep the knees together (the object between your knees shouldn’t drop on the floor) and pull your feet apart.
hold for 1 sec and come back to starting position then repeat for the intended amount of reps.

5. Elbow Plank Alternating Hip Extension

Lie face down on the floor in a prone position with feet together.
Place the upper-body weight on the forearms and flex your feet with the toes pointing towards the shins.
Lock the knees, tighten the glutes and brace the core.
Lift the body so the only contact points are the balls of your feet, toes, elbows and forearms.
From this position engage the glutes and extend one hip to raise the leg off the floor.
Avoid the extension of the lumbar spine (lower back) and hold for 1 sec at the top position.
Lower the leg back to the floor and repeat from step 5 on the opposite leg.

Guidelines

Glute activation routine is suitable for every single person from the average 9-5 employee with no training background to a professional athlete. The only part that varies from one person to another is the volume and exercise’s parameters.

Beginners: The intention here is to develop body awareness and strengthen the glutes. In this case, we can treat the routine as a proper workout performing 3 sets of every movement anywhere between 8-12 repetition with light bands and focusing on technique.
Intermediate: Cases like this are usually when the individual has good mechanics and a training background but lacks strength in the area (or muscles are dormant due to poor training program). In this case we want to increase the intensity of the routine by applying different loading methods (heavier bands, tempo, isometrics etc…). I follow a volume of 2 sets with reps between 12-15 with high time under tension duration.
Advanced: The intention in this case is workout preperation and stabilizing the hips before performing heavy lifts or complex movements. 1-2 sets is more than enough for a warm up to get the glutes fired up performing high repetition between 15-20 reps on these exercises.