People talk a lot about glute activation. Physical therapists  talk about it, gym instructors talk about it endlessly, and even people on the street talk about it these days. But why is glute activation so important? What’s the best way to do it? And which glutes are we talking about here? 

The gluteal muscles are the largest muscles in the human body. That’s because they have a very big job to do. They have two big jobs to do, in fact. The first big job is that they provide propulsion. When you run and walk, your glutes are vital for propelling you in the direction you want. The second big job that gluteal muscles have is to provide stability  and support for the legs. So much so that they are key stabilizers of the ankle  even though it’s so far from the glutes.

The combined job of helping us move and stabilize the joints in the lower limb means that glutes are vital to muscles. 

WHAT’S WRONG WITH WEAK GLUTES 

There is a spectrum of human mobility regarding moving around the planet on one’s feet. At the top end of the spectrum, you have people who can perform an Olympic triple jump or run 100 m in less than 10 seconds. At the other end of the spectrum, you have people who take very small, shuffling strides or limp and who can scarcely get themselves up a small flight of stairs.

Naturally, a much higher number of those people who struggle to get upstairs are older. Therefore, we have a tendency to blame that kind of slowing down on old age. Yet the truth is far more complex and nuanced because increasingly 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, and 50-year-olds struggle with mobility like much older people do. And some older people are extremely active and fit and don’t struggle with mobility at all. But why are we discussing this in a blog about gluteal muscles ?

When we see people struggling with their basic mobility , like the older person shuffling across the road far slower than other pedestrians or the middle-aged person who has to use a handrail to get up a flight of stairs, it is very tempting to blame their mobility either on age or excess weight. But the truth is that in almost every instance, you are seeing the negative long-term consequences of gluteal muscles that are not firing.

An excessively sedentary life , advancing years, and sometimes old injuries contribute significantly to muscle wasting in the glute muscles. Loss of strength in the glute muscles leads to slowing the gait , shortening of stride length, stiffening of joints, and further disincentive to be active. 

This observation of the role of the gluteal muscles in mobility decline  highlights their vital importance in human health and well-being. Especially when we consider that loss of mobility eventually impacts the health of our organs, like the heart and lungs. Mobility is a very complex system where different body parts rely heavily on each other for stimulation. And the gluteal muscles are a key link in the chain.

WHICH GLUTEAL MUSCLE IS MOST IMPORTANT

The single biggest determinant of how well we move in terms of balance, stride length, and speed is the healthy activity of the glutes, especially the gluteus medius. The gluteus medius is the keystone muscle of stability during weight-bearing.

The gluteus medius muscle sits deep behind the hip joint and stabilizes that joint every time your heel strikes the hard concrete or tarmac that is usually underneath you. In terms of the immediate anatomy, this means that the gluteus is the prime stabilizer of the hip joint and, therefore, the muscle that does the most work in preventing the joint from wearing out. In these terms, it is helpful to think of muscles as the bodyguards of our weight-bearing joints. The muscles provide protection to the joints. But there is way more to this than just the stability of the hip joint.

The stability  of the hip joint determines the stability of the knee and the ankle. When we put weight through our legs, the gluteus medius works with the gluteus maximus and the IT band to stabilize our thigh bone, which indirectly (but very powerfully) stabilizes the knee and the ankle.

This means that when you work on your gluteus medius muscle, you are also improving the health of your joints and your long-term outlook for mobility.

A strong gluteus medius means stable joints, injury prevention, and a strong, healthy stride. 

 THE BEST WAY TO STRENGTHEN THE GLUTES 

There are few things more frustrating than knowing exactly what you want but not being able to pull the trigger on making it happen. And this is where millions of people get stuck with gluteal strengthening. They fully understand the importance of this but struggle to activate their glutes. So much so that it is a significant topic of conversation in the health and fitness industry.

It is one thing to understand that your glutes need strengthening and another to actually strengthen them. One of the more frustrating issues that I see in practice is that people assume that just  walking  is enough to keep all of the necessary muscles strong in our lower body. But nothing could be further from the truth. Even the gym can come up way short of strengthening the gluteus medius without the right approach .

The excellent news is that glute strengthening  is actually far easier than you might think. It can be done at home very simply with relatively minimal coaching. The disclaimer is that there is a certain amount of devil in the details, and it’s not as simple as just hanging over an exercise sheet and then cutting loose. 

Carefully executed crab walks using bands at home are a perfectly effective and, in fact, sometimes painfully effective way of strengthening the gluteus medius muscle.  And even the most poorly executed crabwalk using a band will positively affect the glutes. But to really nail this one down, it is necessary to do a few sessions with someone who really understands the exercise and how it affects the glutes so that you can get your form just right. But once you have your form right, you can then use those exercises for a lifetime. They become yours—enabling you to work on preventing knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain injuries, joint degeneration, and general loss of mobility later in life. Strengthening is, in many ways, the ultimate life hack. Especially if you have a history of lower body pain or injuries.

GLUTEAL STRENGTHENING CONCLUSION – A DENTAL ANALOGY

Once upon a time, everybody’s teeth rotted out of their heads by age 35. Now, we are able to make our teeth last into our 80s in many cases. Incredibly, we now consume more sugar than we have ever done in human history, and yet our dental health has improved immeasurably. 

We’ve achieved this because we learned to perform a simple task a couple of times a day to maintain the health of our teeth. By consistently executing that task, we have found that it can make the difference between black stumps and lovely pearly whites.

Consistent long-term strengthening  of the gluteus medius is the key to doing the same thing for our joints and our mobility in the long term. One day, we will look back and see that issues like hip osteoarthritis were, in almost every instance, totally preventable. 

So, the call to action is learning to strengthen the gluteus muscle and then doing so for five minutes every day. I have taken this challenge on board myself, and it has made a huge difference to my quality of life. I’ve seen it do the same for countless others.