Working on big muscles by doing squats, lunges and deadlift are fun for sure. But don’t forget to train these small muscles that stabilize your lower body. Since these are core muscles, these muscles need to have endurance training first.
Why should you train on Gluteus medius/minimus
While the body is designed to resist this stress by having a large MCL on the medial surface of the knee, a key mechanism to protect the knee is directly related to a group of powerful and large posterior lateral muscles at the hips, the gluteal group, which functions to decelerate internal hip rotation.
Clam Shell
Keep the spine neutral as always, feet together, and lift up one of your knees. To add more intensity, wrap a resistance band just above knees. A common mistake is lifting up the knee too much and the spine starts rotating where you are not working gluteus med/min anymore.
- Repetition 12 – 15
- Set 2 – 3
Hip Abduction
Raise your leg laterally straight up, make sure the leg you lift up, is aligned with the whole body since we are targeting the glute med/min.
If you have a personal trainer, it would be good that he/she kneels down against your spine while doing clamshell / hip abduction that makes your spine stay in the right position.
- Repetition 12 – 15
- Set 2 -3
Crab Walk
You can use a circulated resistance band and wrap it around your knees or to make it harder, wrap it around your ankles. Adding squat movement between crabwalk is optional.
- Repetition 12 – 15
- Set 2 – 3
In-home glute workout here
Some exercises during personal training in videos here