The Practice and Science of Glutes Training
The glutes are one of the most powerful muscle groups in our body. Their central position in our body makes them the powerhouse for stability, balance, power generation, posture alignment, aesthetics. The role of the glutes is truly a pivotal one both in everyday life and resistance training. With this article, I aim at carefully delving into everything necessary to know about the glutes when it comes to health and fitness, indirectly supporting the argument for direct glutes training. I will do so mainly drawing from the work of foremost experts who have dedicated many decades to studying the glutes, contributing to vast scientific literature development in the field. These are, mainly, dr. Bret Contreras and dr. Stuart McGill. To present a thorough representation of the glutes and glutes training, this article takes a systematic approach to the topic, starting from why talking about the glutes is relevant in the first place, continuing with the anatomy of the glutes, and further explaining the best glutes-developing movement patterns and exercises.
The benefits of training the glutes appear to be agreed upon by the vast majority of people in the health and fitness community at this point. This is possibly also due to the historical context in which we are living: one characterized by a high level of a sedentary lifestyle and widespread glute amnesia (McGill, 2009). Glute amnesia is a by-product of a widely sedentary lifestyle, which fosters the inactivity of the glutes. There are three major reasons for which glute training is relevant, no matter your end goal in life and fitness (Contreras & Cordoza, 2019). For starters, there is a health argument to be made here. Owing to the central role of the glutes in your day-to-day existence and well-being, actively working to develop powerful glutes can make a significant difference in spine stability and everyday activities performance. Secondly, by developing your glutes you can improve sports performance if you are an athlete. This is the case because of the role the glutes play in every movement pattern that occurs in both dynamic (e.g. soccer, football, rugby) and less-dynamic (e.g. weightlifting) sports. Third, there is an aesthetic and evolutionary argument in favor of well-shaped glutes. Prominent glutes are usually associated with health, fertility, strength both in males and females (Rosa, de Souza, de Lima, Rodrigues, de Aquino Lemos, & da Silva Alves, et al., 2015). As a consequence, glutes training has carryover effects in more than one area of our life, irrespective of the reason why you train them in the first place.
Glutes Anatomy & Movement Patterns
Bones composing the Hips region of the body. Source: Glute Lab by Bret Contreras
Source: Glute Lab by Bret Contreras
There are some well-defined movement patterns targeting the glutes muscles (Contreras & Cordoza, 2019). The glute muscle is composed of three areas: the gluteus maximus, the gluteus medius, and the gluteus minimus. The gluteus maximus is the larger muscle of the three and covers almost the entire glute section of the body. The gluteus medius sits right above the gluteus maximus and on top of the gluteus minimus. Due to the many movement functions of the glutes (which I will describe below), this muscle group is also targeted by compound movements such as squats and deadlifts, although some more specific exercises elicit the highest activation of them (e.g., Hip Thrusts). At this point, we will get into each muscle group composing the glutes, their movement functions, as well as some of the best exercises for each section of the glutes.
““You might be thinking that each gluteal muscle has a specific role when it comes to moving your body, and you’re most certainly right, but we don’t know exactly what those roles are.””
Gluteus maximus → The gluteus maximus is primarily responsible for hip extension, hip abduction, and hip external rotation (Contreras & Cordoza, 2019). These movements happen very often in everyday life, and we can increase our glute max strength by training these movement patterns specifically in our workout bouts.
Gluteus medius → The primary role of the gluteus medius is stabilization. This section of the glutes is pivotal in supporting our body weight when performing unilateral movements or high-balance exercises. This region of the glutes can be subdivided into three areas: anterior, posterior, middle.
Gluteus minimus → On account of its location (right under the gluteus medius) and muscle origin and insertion, the gluteus minimus has the same stabilizing role of the glute medius, and it too is composed of three major sub-areas.
An additional role of the glutes is to control posterior pelvic tilt (the opposite of "arching" your spine), which is very useful to know when it comes to achieving good activation of this muscle group in any movement (Contreras & Cordoza, 2019).
The best glute exercises
““In many of the fundamental hip joint actions (including hip extension and hip external rotation), the glutes are the prime movers, meaning that they are responsible for creating movement. This shows that the gluteus maximus muscle is not merely a conveniently placed synergist (helps with movement), but rather an essential player.””
The best movements to develop the glutes can be split into two broad categories: those that elicit the highest activation of this muscle group, whose aim is to develop strength and hypertrophy; and exercises that act as isolation moves to increase stability and coordination (hence targeting health improvement in everyday life). Regardless of their role, the exercises eliciting the highest level of glutes activation according to EMG data (Boren et al., 2011) are the following, as presented in the book Glute Lab by dr. Contreras & Cordoza, 2019.
Hip Thrusts (sagittal plane)
Glute Bridges (sagittal plane)
Quadruped Hip Extension (sagittal plane)
Upright Hip Thrust (sagittal plane)
Kickback (sagittal plane)
Hip Abduction Exercises (e.g. quadruped firehydrant) (sagittal/frontal plane)
Hip external rotation exercises (transversal plane)
Posterior pelvic tilt movements (e.g, "gymnastic-style" plank)
Besides those, the glutes are also active participants in other compound movements such as squats and deadlifts, although not to such a high degree as in the exercises and movement patterns listed above.
When it comes to the stabilizing role of the glutes, this is fundamental for spine stability, which allows the spine to be healthy and maintain a proper alignment in our everyday life. The glutes, as a matter of fact, also act to prevent over-extension from happening at the spine. A significant percentage of low back pain stems from glutes amnesia, the prolonged non-use of the glutes in our everyday activities that is caused by lack of movement. Dr. Stuart McGill is one of the world's foremost experts in this field. He developed a model of low back pain intervention that is often referred to as "McGill's Big 3" (McGill, 2017). This is a 3-exercise protocol that heavily relies on glute activation movements to improve low back pain:
Curl-Up
Side Plank
Bird-Dog
Taking Action: Glutes Training in a Harmonious Training Program
The rule of thirds, as posited by dr. Contreras is possibly the best approach to directly training your glutes for maximum effectiveness and growth. The video above by dr. Contreras himself explains the rule of thirds applied to glutes training. The basic principle behind the rule of thirds lies in the nature and intensity of glutes-specific exercises. As a matter of fact, due to the multiple movement patterns that target each region of the glutes, including exercises that work on different planes seems to be the best way to develop the glutes optimally. According to the rule of thirds by dr. Contreras, a comprehensive glute training protocol presents the following characteristics:
It includes one exercise in the vertical plane (e.g. squats, lunges, deadlifts); one movement in the horizontal plane (e.g. cable kickbacks, hip thrusts); one exercise in the lateral plane of motion (e.g., lateral band walks, hip abductions).
It includes a varying level of intensity of effort in each training bout: leave some reps in reserve on one exercise; go very close to failure on the second exercise; reach complete failure on one of the movements.
Use a different rep range for each exercise. Muscle hypertrophy and strength are elicited by three fundamental mechanisms (Schoenfeld, 2010): muscle damage; mechanical tension; metabolic stress. Each of these pathways is prompted by a certain rep range and intensity. Using a wide range of repetitions allows us to maximize our training session and, consequently, our glutes development. According to the rule of thirds, you want to use a mix of heavy, medium, and light weight for the three exercises, to make the most out of the workout session.
Glutes Development Follows Some Key Principles
Including glutes-specific movements in a holistic training program that also takes into account the other muscle groups is very important to achieve your glutes development objective. Growing more powerful glutes is a process that follows the same rules as any other muscle group development. Implementing direct glute training through some of the movement patterns above is key. Doing so taking into account the relevant muscle development mechanisms is just as important. Mechanical tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress are at the basis of every training program and exercise performed. So is progressive overload. Mechanical tension is the overloading force placed on the muscle fibers through a full range of motion, i.e. full stretch and full contraction, or dynamic movement. In a squat, full range of motion means going all the way down as deep as your body allows without rounding your lower back, and all the way up to full contraction of the leg musculature and straight legs. Muscle damage is defined as "localized damage to muscle tissue which, under certain conditions, is theorized to generate a hypertrophic response" by dr. Schoenfeld in his 2010 article in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning research. Training under load generates micro damages in muscle fibers, which, with recovery, grow back bigger and more resistant. Metabolic stress is a physiological process that occurs during exercise in response to low energy that leads to metabolite accumulation [lactate, phosphate inorganic (Pi) and ions of hydrogen (H+)] in muscle cells (Role of metabolic stress for enhancing muscle adaptations: Practical applications). Progressive overload is a training principle according to which "training must include overload and progression to be successful. The body must be overloaded so that it has to work harder than normal. As the body adapts to a particular workload, the person should progress to a higher work level" (Oxford Reference).
RESOURCES
The truth about glute activation warm ups | Bret Contreras
Contreras, B., & Cordoza, G. (2019). Glute Lab: The Art and Science of Strength and Physique Training. Victory Belt Publishing.
Fisher, B. E., Southam, A. C., Kuo, Y. L., Lee, Y. Y., & Powers, C. M. (2016). Evidence of altered corticomotor excitability following targeted activation of gluteus maximus training in healthy individuals. Neuroreport, 27(6), 415–421. https://doi.org/10.1097/WNR.0000000000000556
Harrison, A. J., & McCABE, C. (2017). The effect of a gluteal activation protocol on sprint and drop jump performance. The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness, 57(3), 179–188. https://doi.org/10.23736/S0022-4707.16.06025-4
Parr, M., Price, P. D., & Cleather, D. J. (2017). Effect of a gluteal activation warm-up on explosive exercise performance. BMJ open sport & exercise medicine, 3(1), e000245. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2017-000245
Neto, W. K., Soares, E. G., Vieira, T. L., Aguiar, R., Chola, T. A., Sampaio, V. L., & Gama, E. F. (2020). Gluteus Maximus Activation during Common Strength and Hypertrophy Exercises: A Systematic Review. Journal of sports science & medicine, 19(1), 195–203.
Rosa, J., de Souza, A., de Lima, G., Rodrigues, D., de Aquino Lemos, V., & da Silva Alves, E. et al. (2015). Motivational and evolutionary aspects of a physical exercise training program: a longitudinal study. Frontiers In Psychology, 6. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00648
Kristen Boren, T. (2011). ELECTROMYOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF GLUTEUS MEDIUS AND GLUTEUS MAXIMUS DURING REHABILITATION EXERCISES. International Journal Of Sports Physical Therapy, 6(3), 206. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3201064/
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