Here are Mari's Top 5 Unite Health Glute Exercises. Enjoy!

The gluteal muscles are the main group of muscles that offer support around our outer pelvis. Think of the pelvis like the foundation, or base that our legs attach to – so having optimal gluteal strength and control is therefore so important for when we are on our feet throughout the day, both for lower and higher impact activities.

There are different ways to strengthen your gluteals that work to provide different important benefits. Here are are my top 5 favourite Unite Health exercises to strengthen your glutes!

1. Shoulder Bridge:

Bridging is an all round winner for gluteal muscle activation and building endurance. The bridge with articulation (rolling), is incredible for mobilising the joints of the spine through the middle and lower back, and the bridge press works into gluteus maximus strength as well as what we call the Posterior Oblique Sling, which strengthens into lower back muscles and hamstrings. It is easy to get creative with the shoulder bridge once you have the basics in check – the variations are endless!

2. Clam:

Clams are an exercise that focuses more on the posterior fibers of the gluteus medius muscle, as they involve outward rotation of the hip. Again, a super important area to work to build stability around the hip - this rotational control exercise helps to support any single leg movements. The clam is also an incredible exercise to retrain timing between the gluteus medius muscle and surrounding muscles.

3. Lift and lower: 

 Lift and lowers work into our lateral sling. All around amazing for improving hip control, stability and balance. Lift and lower is a great strengthening exercise for so many different sports including tennis, football, golf and dancers, because it works to retrain pelvic rotary stability.

4. Side kick:

The movement focus of the side kick is gluteal strengthening as well as rotary stability. Side kick is a fantastic exercise to challenge and develop strength in posterior fibers of gluteus medius, as well as to challenge balance and stability in side lying. This is such a great exercise to build strength endurance and for balance training in higher level athletes, such as runners – note the position of the top leg in this exercise – it looks a bit similar to the swing phase of running, don’t you think?!

5. Swimmer:

Swimmer is amazing for getting the gluteal muscles firing into hip extension, and also works to focus on the timing of activation between the glutes and hamstrings. Swimmer is also a great exercise in order to dissociate hip extension from the central core. You can always also incorporate the upper body with swimmer to include middle back strengthening if you feel like multitasking ☺

Watch this short video as Mari demonstrates her top 5 glute exercises. 

I hope these exercises have given you some inspiration for the next time you do glutes focused exercise. There are so many different variations of these exercises, to increase the challenge too! I also hope that this has given you a bit more of an insight into how some of your glute strength based exercises might be helping to support your body by making it stronger. Happy glutes training!

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About the author:

Mari Yammas is our newest addition to the Unite Health team. Mari is a qualified physiotherapist, with a passion for wellness through pilates. Marilena was introduced to the APPI method while living in London, and went on to work at APPI's Wimbledon clinic. 

She also works as a Pilates guru for Steph Claire Smith and Laura Henshaw's @keepitcleaner 

You can find her at @i_do_pilates_