An EN asked for help getting her glutes to fire when running. I took the opportunity to reflect back on how I have been attempting to resurrect my running while challenged by various lower limb difficulties…
Over the past four years, working with a couple of Physical Therapists and by myself, I’ve done a number of exercises designed to help with my lower core, which I define as hip flexors, Glutes, posas, and sartorious muscle groups. The whole idea was to add to the strength I already have in Quads, hamstrings, and Gluteus Maximus, to eliminate the pains I was having with high hamstring tendonitis and knee osteoarthritis. I also re-committed to weight training beyond the body weight work involved in exercises.
I am glad to say that today, I am finally better/stronger than I have been in the past four years. Here are the exercises I found most effective (in order of effectiveness):
• Single leg bridges. Work should be felt in the upper outer quarter of the butt.
• Something I call the bird dip. Stand on one leg, keep the other mostly straight. Lean forward at the waist, then lean back, extending beyond vertical. Imagine one of those office desk toys where a bird seems to continually dip its beak forward into water and bounces back.
• Single leg squats
• Hip raises: standing on one leg, drop the opposite hip and bring it back up again, using the upper/outer hip muscles of tghe leg you’re standing on.
• Leg press in the weight room. Can be squats, leg press sled, whatever. Getting to 2.9 x your body weight is the goal, but be careful not to exceed 90% flexion art the knee.
• Clam shells.
As for getting glutes to “fire”, I think the best way to do that is to run fast. Start with strides, and work up to short, hard intervals at better than 5k pace. Jogging along at an “all-day” pace is a sure-fire way to train the glutes they don’t have to fire. Making them work will wake them up.
Unless I had an actual broken bone (I guess I would put a torn ligament into that category as well, although it’s never happened to me), I have always found that running, weight lifting, and daily body work is the road to healing. “Rest” to me has always meant doing less volume, frequency and/or intensity. Persistence pays.