How to exercise your bum

The exercises I was given recently by a biomechanical specialist to train my glutes to fire properly (and avoid my hams taking too much load), and to strengthen them are below for anyone who is interested. If you get very tight hams the cause may well be your glutes not firing properly, or being too weak.

Exercise 1 - training your glute to fire before your ham
Dead easy. Lie on your front, face down into the carpet. Lift one leg up to an angle of ~ 20 degrees. Feel your bum as you do this. Make sure it tenses before your leg raises. If it doesn't, do it consciously - tense bum then raise. Basically hold your leg for 20 secs then drop and repeat. This is about nerve training so repetition is needed.

Exercise 2 - bridging and pelvic stability
Lie on back, knees bent, pointing upwards. Tense stomach and raise hips towards ceiling so your upper body ends up at an angle of 45 degrees. Extend one leg out along this 45 degree angle and hold for 20 secs. Your knees should be in line and your pelvis shouldn't move - control it with bum and stomach muscles if it does.

Exercise 3 - glute med strengthening 1
Lie on side with both legs bent semi-foetal style. Your knees should be together and pointing down i.e. don't curl your knees up too much. Put your hand on your hip to make sure it stays pointing forward, rather than moving backwards with the exercise. Keep your heels together and lift your topmost knee up and back towards your bum. Try a few different angles to get it right. You should feel the burn in a 45 degree angle from the hip insert of the ITB to the bottom of where your bum cheeks meet. Do 10-15 reps. Don't hold in extension.

Exercise 4 - glute med strengthening 2
Lie on side, legs straight and together. Life your uppermost leg to an angle of 20-30 degrees. Make sure you don’t bend at the side of your midriff. Keep this solid so the load is taken by your bum and ITB. Do 10-15 reps.

Exercise 5 - glute strengthening 3
Lie on your side. Keep your lowermost leg straight and bend your uppermost leg so that your knee is semi-foetal and your foot is behind the calf of your lowermost leg. Keep the heel steady, your hips pointing forward and bring your knee up and back towards your bum. This is a variant of exercise 3 and should feel similar in burn. Do 10-15 reps (or however many you need to - this applies to the other exercises).


A key trick in all the exercises is making sure that you don't let your glutes have an easy time of it. Focus on tensing and working the glutes, tense but don't take load in your stomach, and don't reduce load by letting your hips roll back (for exercises 3 and 5). In doing so the strengthening will be more effective and you'll also train your glutes to fire properly.

Beer in the next post. Honest.