How To Fix Your Weak Glutes & Run Injury Free

hey runners I'm Holly from their own experience and today I'm telling you how to fix your weak glutes glutes are some of our strongest muscles and sometimes our most underused they have so much effect on our posture our positions on our stability and when used correctly can keep injuries away from the rest of our body I will give you my favorite drills and a workout you can do to include some strengthening work in your routine let's get into it [Music] so the term glutes before we get into anything else what do we mean when we say that glutes is a little abbreviation for your gluteus minimus medius and Maximus working in combination so this entire backside here from the top of the hamstring up to that low back it's going to be your glutes a lot of people struggle with having weak glutes or not being able to fire them the way they should and what happens when we kind of get those glutes out of whack and they're not doing what they should be other muscles have to step in and almost overwork and fill in those gaps which can lead to a little bit more injury aches and pains along the way so we want to get you nice and stacked get those guys firing and have you know the difference when they're off versus on so one thing a little example a little test you can use to see if yours are firing or not if I'm standing up nice and straight and then I've dump to dump the pelvis forward just a little bit what happens here is I kind of lean just a little bit from the from the hips here my hamstrings overextend a little bit back here immediately I can't engage my glutes anymore I can't find that little pinch position underneath where you're almost squeezing the butt cheeks together so when I lose that back here the hamstrings elongate have to engage a little bit more and then I even find my low back compressing so if you deal with low back pain this could definitely be part of it when I'm able to tuck the pelvis I can bring that engagement back and then stand up nice and straight and engage everything properly the more time you spend in good positions the more you'll register when things are not being in the right place when you're not moving the right way especially in your running next thing we're going to do is go through a couple drills you can use to strengthen those glute muscles so we're gonna fix those weak glutes with three of my favorite exercises I'm gonna walk you through everything right now we're gonna get started with a weighted squat a back squat to be specific I'm using a PVC pipe today but I want you to assume that this is a barbell with some weight on there you really don't need anything too heavy but something to help you understand the value of your gluts and standing up from the bottom of a squat so what you're gonna do is get this guy on the back there's a safe way to do this if you're using a barbell you're gonna step under it and then Stan up nice and tall and back it out if you're using a squat rack you got the safe way and you're gonna just use a nice loose position with the hands here nice and wide so you can keep those shoulders down and back your squat stance is gonna be a little wider than hip width you can turn the toes out slightly if you need but you're going to start up nice and tall just like this from here I'm gonna sit those hips back keeping the chest up so hips go back and I'm gonna start to bend the knees and widen them as if I'm pressing against two walls on either side of my knees keeping that belly tight the whole time I'm going to come down finding the bottom of that squat position from here I'm gonna drive out of the heels and I'm immediately gonna push my hips forward so as I stand hips are coming forward and I'm finding a tight position at the top giving one more big squeeze to the glutes like I'm squeezing a piece of paper between my butt cheeks that's gonna be the top of the position I go down again everything's tight and squeeze up I can even do a better job at keeping that gaze a little bit higher pressing those knees out and squeezing again we don't want the knees to go over the toes that's never a good thing for the quads or anything around the knee you want to keep those back with hips going back like that with the weight being on the shoulders it becomes that much more important to push with the hips forward so that's why we're using this under load you're required to kind of exaggerate that glute position and the punch you get from the bottom if it was heavier and you weren't able to stand up with just the legs the glutes are what come in and help you there now we're going to use a glute bridge drill we're gonna work the backsides here and just really kind of separate everything that the squat had going on from the glutes so you're gonna just lay down on the ground here bend those legs under the knees and bring that belly button into the spine pressing that low back into the ground from here you're going to kind of feel that pelvis tilt up towards the sky and we're just going to press into the heels and roll the hips off the mat so I'm going to find the highest squeeze position I can up at the top here with my stomach engaged I'm gonna roll back down one vertebrae at a time finding my hips to the ground last so basically I'm gonna reverse the order so I tell the hips down I raise it up all the way to the top and now I'm going to start with this back point here and try to make contact with the mat going all the way down this is a very slowed down version when you do this in a workout I'm not going to have you roll up and down but I just want you to understand that that is how you're gonna make contact nice and organized through the spine when we do this in a workout you will just be trying to find the heels to drive the butt up to the sky so I'm just going to do a couple quick here pressing up and down still controlling without that roll through and you'll find the more you press those knees apart at the top the more you can engage the glutes all the way at the top if I want to make this harder what I can do is tuck one foot under take one foot off and drive just out of that left leg the key here is to not let your hips dump one side to the other because now you have to keep organized and even without the support of that other foot I switch legs see what's going on on this side see if that knee wants to cave in at all one thing to notice here is which side is different for a lot of you if you have a hip issue or something going on in the front or maybe deep in this so as their abs those things can all be drawn back to a weak glued on one side maybe one sides not working the way it should your strides little off in some way this is a good exercise to test that so the final drill we're gonna do today is going to be a step-up we're going to use a raised surface to almost get the feel of what would feel like a single leg squat so we're gonna really load that front leg take the help away from the back leg and use the glutes to push our body weight up to a higher surface so what that's gonna look like I'm gonna just put one foot up on this surface you can start with something lower a nice small step to get used to this and then work your way up to something higher what I'm gonna do here is just find a 90 degree Bend and I'm not gonna lose that so I'm not gonna lean forward as I try to step up I'm gonna eat this the whole time I'm gonna sit those hips back start to load the hamstring you're already gonna feel this kind of turn on a bit more abs are super engaged I'm gonna take a nice big breath and I'm going to step into the whole entire right foot all while pushing the hips forward at the top goal is to keep this leg from doing anything so the opposite leg is not helping you here I recommend at least trying to stand up on the one leg then you can kind of catch that balance take it off again and you're going to reverse this two-step back down so I try to press that knee out to the side you'll notice it does want to cave in that's something that's really normal on a single leg drill especially something changing levels when we're gonna fight to make it not happen I lean forward step up hips up maybe I set reset that foot back here and dropping back down coming back down might be harder for some of you you can even practice just the stepping down at first hips back abs engaged then I would switch to the other side coming up here and slowly lowering back doing these alternated would be a little bit easier than doing all on one side than all on the other because you'll get a little more tired that way but it is effective same thing as the bridge here you'll notice one side might be easier than the other so I love those three drills for really getting into your glutes and understanding how they work for you they're great to work slow a few times a week you know either together or on their own but what's really important is translating that glute strength into your running and your normal activity so even your daily walking you're sitting how you're on the bus these things are really where it starts to break down and create injury so we want to build this into a little run workout and get you moving with those nice strong glutes even when you're tired so workout I recommend to try is going to be for five rounds you're going to do a 400-meter run or maybe if you don't have a track or a measured out 400 meter run maybe you're going to run for about a minute a half to two minutes you're gonna come back you're going to do ten air squats so take the weight out of it take the PVC pipe out of it you're just gonna do ten air squats and then you're gonna go down on the ground for ten glute bridge raises that can be with the feet down together like we did in that first version or you can do for the harder version one leg off you'll do 10 on each side so working just that single leg glute raise position take a little rest if you need to otherwise you're back into that next 400 meter run you're gonna go for five rounds here probably by the third or fourth round when you start to get tired you might start to notice that pelvic tilt that little breakdown where the glutes turn off the hamstrings kind of start to take over and maybe you're feeling it in your back so you want to use this to bleed all of it together use that strong running position and work it all the way through and all of your training so we heal yeah so hope you guys got something from this video if you're looking to up your training a little bit and give our programming a try you should click the link down in the description for our two-week QuickStart totally free to you you've got two weeks of workouts warmups drills and cooldown all that you can implement into your training routine if you did like this video make sure you give that thumbs up down below if you have any comments or questions for me as well as requests for future videos or you're dealing with some injury that you want to get fixed drop that in the comments and lastly subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet we have brand new videos coming out multiple times a week we want you to catch those and not miss a single one thanks again for watching I'll catch you guys in the next video [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Run Experience

Views: 72,134

Keywords: the run experience, running training, distance running tips, how to run faster, beginner running, half marathon, distance running, trail running, 5k, how to fix your weak glutes and run injury free, how to fix your weak glutes, how to strengthen your glutes, stronger glutes, exercises for weak glutes, gluteus maximus, how to strengthen your butt, back pain, workouts for stronger glutes, best butt workout, running workout for stronger glutes

Id: E8IMk8ZfORg

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 08 2019