Try These Powerful Glute Activation Exercises Before Your Next Workout

Your glutes are the largest muscle group in your body and play an important role in providing power and stability in many movements - both in day-to-day life and your workouts. Common exercises such as squats, lunges and deadlifts work to strengthen your glutes, so it’s fundamental to learn how to activate your glutes to get the most out of your workouts. Read on to learn how to activate your glutes, the benefits of glute activation and why it’s important for developing strength, and how to perform the best glute activation exercises with correct form.

What is glute activation?

Glute activation refers to doing specific exercises to ‘activate’ or properly warm up your glute (aka butt) muscles before a workout. Due to long periods spent sitting down, many people have weak glutes, which can make it challenging to do exercises like squats with proper form, using the right muscles. 

How often should you do glute activation exercises?

Spending a little bit of time warming up your glutes before each workout can help to make sure you are engaging those big muscles and reduce your risk of injury, rather than overly relying on smaller surrounding muscles to do the heavy lifting. 

What are your glutes?

Your glutes — or your gluteal muscles, as they are more formally known — refer to the muscles in your butt. Specifically, there are three major muscles in this area: your gluteus maximus (the main, large muscle that shapes your backside), your gluteus medius and your gluteus minimus (two smaller muscles that assist the gluteus maximus in moving your body).

What causes weak glutes?

While there are many reasons behind weak glutes, one of the main causes is that many of us are living increasingly sedentary lifestyles. A lot of jobs involve sitting down for most of the day, and some of us spend extra time on the couch at home to relax too. This means we aren’t engaging our glute muscles very often. Another reason why someone might have weak glutes could be due to poor form when exercising and generally over-relying on other muscles during both workouts and everyday movements.

Why is glute activation important?

Learning how to activate and warm up your glutes is important in order to properly engage and strengthen them during your workout. And why are strong glutes so important? Because they are the largest muscle in the body, they can have a major impact on your overall body strength and help to support other parts of your body. Having strong glutes can help to support a range of exercises and compound movements, as well as help avoid the decreases in mobility that come from muscle imbalances.

Without warming up your glutes, you may perform exercises with incorrect form or engage different muscles, which can contribute to a range of health issues including poor posture, lower back pain, balance issues, lack of strength, muscle pain, and of injury. 

So what are the best exercises for glute activation to strengthen these muscles?

Best exercises for glute activation

Just as you warm up the rest of your body before a workout, it is important to activate (or ‘fire up’) your glute muscles - especially before workouts that focus on your lower body. By performing a warm-up that specifically focuses on glute activation, you are helping to create a mind-body connection, where you know what it feels like to properly engage those muscles. Then when your workout begins, you can focus on making sure your glute muscles remain engaged throughout each exercise. 

Here are the best glute exercises you can incorporate into any warm-up to get you ready for your workout!  These are great to perform with a resistance band but don’t worry if you don’t have one — they are still effective when performed with your body weight.

Clam — 20 reps (10 each side)

1. With a resistance band looped around your lower thighs (just above your knees), lay on your right side with your arm extended along the mat and your head relaxed on your arm. Bend both knees and draw them forward to bring your feet in line with your glutes, making sure your hips are stacked and there is a small gap between your waist and the floor. 

2.  Keep your feet together and as you exhale, lift your left knee towards the ceiling, maintaining a gap between your waist and the floor. You should feel your glute muscles working.

3. As you inhale, lower your right knee to return to the starting position.

4. Complete 10 repetitions on one side before completing 10 repetitions on the other side.

Crab Walk — 20 reps (10 each side)

1. With a resistance band looped around your lower thighs just above your knees, stand with your feet hip-width apart. Looking straight ahead, bend at both your hips and knees into a half squat position, making sure your knees remain in line with your toes and your back remains between a 45- to 90-degree angle to your hips. 

2. As you exhale in this squat position, step your left foot outwards so that your feet are slightly further than shoulder-width apart.

3. As you inhale, step your right foot inwards to return to the starting squat position - think about taking steps like a crab! 

4. Complete 10 repetitions on one side before completing 10 repetitions on the other side.

Donkey Kick — 20 reps (10 each side)

1. With a resistance band looped around your thighs, start on all fours on a yoga mat. Make sure your knees are below your hips and your hands are below your shoulders. Have your spine in a neutral position and draw your shoulder blades down and back.

2. As you exhale,  keep your knee bent and lift your right leg until your thigh is in line with your spine. Make sure your foot is flexed. 

3. As you inhale, lower your right leg to return to the starting position, but without resting your knee on the mat.

4. Complete 10 repetitions on one side, before repeating 10 repetitions on the other side.

Glute Bridge — 15 reps

1. With a resistance band looped around your lower thighs just above your knees, lie flat on your back on a mat, with your knees bent and feet flat. Make sure your feet are hip-width apart and your spine is in a neutral position. Rest your arms by your sides. 

2. As you exhale, press your heels into the mat, squeeze your glutes and raise your pelvis off the floor until your body forms one straight line from chin to knee, resting on your shoulders.

3. As you inhale, lower your pelvis to return to the starting position.

4. Repeat for 15 repetitions.

Fire up your glutes regularly and you’ll feel the results

Aim to perform these glute activation exercises regularly before you workout — especially when your workout involves your lower body. Add in some glute stretches during cool down after you workout to make the most of your session. By doing this, as well as regularly foam rolling as a recovery method, you are helping yourself get one step closer towards optimising your results. Increasing regular glute activation will strengthen one of the biggest and most important muscles in your body!

What other exercises do you like to do to help activate your glutes? Let us know in the comments below!