The Best Glute Med Exercises for Runners ⎹ Ep 140

In todays episode, Dr. Lisa breaks down the science of why exercises like clamshells need to be progressed and what exactly you can do to strengthen the gluteus medius.

Links and Resources:

• 30/30 Runners Strength Group (Starts July 1)
• Research for Glute Med

Transcript

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Welcome back to the Rehab Runners podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Lisa. And because my life, I apologize for not putting out a podcast episode on that like weekly schedule like I had been. We are moving next week. I have a newborn. Um, my life is, you know, when you're just like surrounded by a mess and you can't think straight. That's pretty much how it feels in our house right now. Um, the dogs know something's up. It's like just just hold on for one more week. Just I promise something better is coming. We're moving into a much bigger house, which is needed because if you have a newborn or you have a baby, you know they just have so much stuff. There's so much stuff. Very thankful for a lot of people who've given us hammy-downs, but my goodness, we we phase out of our single family home so fast. So it just kind of feels like things are changing very quickly around me. My baby girl's about to roll, so and we put her in her crib to sleep. She's not in her room anymore. So it's just like things are happening, and it's just it just feels like things are just happening so fast, and it's like, time, please just slow down. Let me like soak this in before I have to rush and do something else. Um, so I apologize for that. So from now on, this summer, I'm gonna go at the cadence posting a podcast. Basically, one when I have the time, and two when I have something important to talk about, which, you know, fair enough. But today, I definitely have something important to talk about. I love talking about the glutes. I know runners love hearing about the glutes, it's just this magical muscle, and it really is. I'm like making fun of it, but it really is. Obviously, the glutes play a really important role. If you've ever been to PT, oh man, I I know I used to be this PT. Ugh, cringe. If you've ever been this PT, or if you've ever been to PT and say you had like hip pain, ITB syndrome, knee pain, whatever, and it's like, okay, you immediately get bridges, clamshells, sideline leg lifts, prone leg lifts, um, and maybe some side steps. And I feel like clamshells, like I just get the I get like the PT ick from clamshells. And it's not even because it's not a bad exercise. Clamshells are not a bad exercise at all. They're just so over-prescribed, and it's thought of as this like holy grail exercise. But the problem is it's a great place to start. It's truly a great place to start. Muscle activation, pelvic stability. Like you feel the burn when you're doing clamshells. So it's not like it's a bad, I don't want you thinking it's a bad exercise. It's just one, overprescribed for like anyone and everyone who has ever had knee or hip pain. And two, runners need, you know, if you're a sedentary person, that is a completely different story. But if you're a runner, you have to be able to progress, you have to progress this exercise in order to see some sort of gains in the strength of that gluteus medius muscle because the clamshell is going through a hip external rotation movement, and you have to be able to load that motion more in order to one, see gains with your strength, and two, see that carryover while you're running. So I came across this research article as one does in their free time, and it's a systematic review, and it was really about like what are the best exercises to strengthen the gluteus medius. And I think the big thing is, you know, in order to build strength just with any muscle, you have to progressively overload this muscle. Now, if you're always doing like for the past two years, if you've been doing three sets of 10 clamshells, you have not overloaded this muscle enough, and you've almost you've basically like phased out of this exercise to where you need the next step. And that's what I'm here to tell you is like, and we'll talk through this, but it's like, what is the next step? Because you know, it's it's the same thing with any other exercise. If you've been doing three sets of 10 single-legged heel raises without any sort of progression, off a step with a weight, any sort of progression, you've phased out of that. That is gonna eventually feel easy to you, and then you're just going through the motions and you need the next progression in order to continue to see strength gains. But the problem with clamshells is it's not necessarily like a strength gains exercise, it's a muscle activation exercise. This exercise is really good if you need that mind muscle connection. So, like baseline strength of the glute mead. Maybe you've had surgery. That is a great exercise for you to start with. But when we're running and even walking, the gluteus medius doesn't just need to activate. That's like step one. It also needs to stabilize and single leg, it also needs to handle the load, especially with the high impact, like running, and it has to control the pelvis when you're running to prevent any sort of like hip drop or hip hike. So, this research article I came across basically stated that not all glute meat exercises create the same stimulus of intensity needed for strength adaptation. So it's basically like if you do, if I give you 10 different gluteus medius exercises to do, I say, you know, your glute meat is weak, do all 10 of these three times a week. Each exercise is gonna create a different type of contraction, muscle contraction, depending on the intensity of the exercise. So it's basically like, you know, if you're doing not all lunges are created equal, not all gluteus medius exercises are created equal, just as an example. And some are gonna create more strength gains than others, which can help carry over into your running. So this is really good if you are that type of runner who's like, I never feel my glutes when I run, or my glutes just continue to feel weak, even though I do all these glute exercises for them. Or if you're the runner who's like, I feel like I have to do these five glute exercises before every single run in order to feel my glutes or in order to get my glutes going. Like I know if I do those exercises, then I run better. Or it, you know, it feels like I have a stronger stride. And there's nothing, I don't want to say there's anything wrong with that, with that, but it does kind of raise a yellow flag to me where it's like, okay, well, why do you feel like you need to do those? Like, what's what's the missing link where you could just do a dynamic warm-up and go for a run? You know, where's that missing link? And usually it's because a lot of the exercises that someone will stick to are very baseline muscle activation exercises, but really you need to continue to progress in order to continue to load that muscle. Hey, real quick, if you're a runner who's tried strength training, maybe you're not as consistent as you'd like to be. Maybe you want to strength train and you wanna see this carryover into your runs, you want to run a lot stronger as you enter into that fall training block. Well, I'm hosting a 3030 runner strength accountability group for 30 days starting July 1st. You're gonna get three workouts a week, and each workout is only gonna take you 30 minutes. You're gonna learn what it's like to move with intention. You're also gonna learn what it's like to go through running specific movement patterns. We start July 1st, it's $30 to sign up as a one-time fee. And this is a really fun group with a lot of accountability. So I look forward to seeing you there. Just sign up below with the link. So, this research article all about glute mead and that re normal, like typical rehab exercises for glute mead really came to this summary that activation exercises do not equal strength. But on the flip side, higher activation exercises usually means better strengthening potential. So, again, not all glute mead exercises are created equal, and activation is like that first step of mind muscle connection, but you have to progress. I cannot emphasize that enough. So let's talk about ways you can actually progress. Say you're like Lisa, I've done clamshells for three years, three sets of 10. Tell me what to do next because I still can't feel my glutes when I'm running. Let's walk through it. As you probably know, progressing into some sort of weight-bearing exercise and especially single leg is a great way to easily progress it. So standing clamshells is like I would say the next best step for you. If you think about a clamshell, you're going in a hip external rotation. Take that exact movement inside line, and now do it in standing. So you're gonna stand on one leg, the other leg is going to be bent with your toes on a wall and think about like a 90-degree angle bend of that knee, and you're just gonna bring your knee, rotate it out, and come back in. So now this is like a double whammy exercise, which, if you know, those are my favorite, because we're not just working the leg that's moving, we're also working the leg that's in standing. And most people actually feel their glute working more on the leg that's in standing because it has to stabilize so much as the other leg moves into that dynamic movement. So that is a great way to easily progress a clamshell. Now, one of the best exercises for the glute mead, drum roll, please, because if you're not doing this, I highly recommend doing it. And there's multiple ways you can do this, but it is a pelvic drop and a hip hike. Now, when the pelvis is dropping when we're running, no bueno, we don't want that. That's known as hip drop, usually because of glute mead weakness. But when we're working on actively dropping one side of the pelvis, so say you're standing on one leg and the other knee is bent, you're just in standing, you drop the side of the pelvis that the knee is bent on. You drop it, you actively drop it, and then you work to hike that hip up. You are working on the glute mead of that standing leg. So this is a great way to work on preventing hip drop when you're running. There's a lot of different ways that you can do that exercise. You can also do it with your, you know, you're standing on a stair step and the other leg is off of the stair step. It's kind of like hanging off the stair step. The key is that you keep the I see this mistake a lot, but the key is that you keep both knees straight and you're only hiking up and down the pelvis. So that's the key. You're not bending and straightening your knees, you're not like rotating your shoulders and your trunk, trying to get that pelvis up. The motion is only the pelvis drops on one side and then the pelvis lifts on one side, and it's dropping and it's lifting. And on the opposite side of the pelvis that is not actively doing the dropping and the lifting, that is where you're gonna feel that gluteus medius turn on and kick on. This is a great way to continue to strengthen that glute mead. And it's obviously specific to running because now we're working on pelvic stability and single leg. You can progress it by holding a weight. Uh, so many. This is like a great exercise, and it's number one in the research. Another really specific exercise for running is a lateral step up. So if you have stairs, if you have a chair or a box, like a plyo box, think about like a normal box step up, would be kind of like the pattern of like you going up the stairs, but a lateral step up, think about it like you're going up the stairs sideways in a way. So one foot is gonna be on this box or step, so you're lifting it up to the side, and then you're lifting the other leg up. And because you're lifting it up to the side, working into hip abduction, it requires more of that glute mead strength. Plus, you're working into single leg. So, and like triple whammy, you're working on quads and glute max, hamstrings as well, trunk stability, pelvic stability, the list goes on and on. So, that's another great exercise. So, hopefully, these exercises change your thought process. Of you basically want to go from that question of, are my glutes firing, to how can I make my glutes stronger? Glute activation is super important. My muscle connection, super important. But once you've got it, you've got it. Now, a good example of this is you also know, besides the glutes, I love talking about the feet. So if you've ever done an exercise like toe yoga, where you're building that big toe muscle, so the muscles of the big toe, and then the the brain connection. Once you've like if you've never been able to do toe yoga and then you keep practicing it, you keep practicing it, and all of a sudden you just get it. Once you've gotten it, it's time to continue to progress and stabilize through that big toe. You don't just want to stop there. Muscle activation is just like step one. We gotta keep progressing in order to see any sort of results in the exercises that we're doing and being able to see that carryover into your running. Hopefully, this episode was helpful, giving you some actionable tips about how you can start to continue strengthening that glute mead. If you want to join my runner's strength group, I will link that below. We start July 1st. That is going to consist of a lot of gluten mead exercises, a lot of full body work. It's just gonna be a load of fun, and everyone keeps everyone else accountable, which I find really fun because then it just feels like you're not going through your strength workouts together. So if you want to join, make sure you join before July 1st. That's when the doors close. 30 days of strength, 30 minutes for $30. Gonna be a lot of fun, and I hope to see you there.