Having suffered through a pretty extensive and painful back issue I am now a bit skeptical of the word "engage" in the context of core or glutes while pedaling a bike. Hey guys, bit of advice required here. 7 comments. After you activate a muscle, the next step is to strengthen it. 94% Upvoted. Remember to concentrate on squeezing your glutes. I've always been quad dominant in my squat, I know olympic squats and front squats are pretty quad dominant anyway but I feel like I may be excessively so, especially as the weights get heavy I notice knees coming in more in order to get the weight up. Engaging glutes / posterior chain in squats. Now that you know what your glute contraction is supposed to feel like, use that new feeling to help “rewire” your movement pattern by engaging the glutes through the following strengthening exercises. What you're 'feeling' doesn't necessarily correlate to your muscular development. These early exercises are great for the initial activation of your glutes. engaging glutes while running. I really can't even feel them while I run :/ I have tight hip flexors so I've been doing stretches to work on that, but any other advice? Your glutes will always be working during the squat. Here are my 3 top exercises to fire up and activate your lazy glutes so you can actually switch them on properly when training and strengthening them with other glute exercises. Master basic glute activation exercises and learn what engaging your glutes should feel like; Improve lumbro-pelvic posture and core control; Practice running technique cues to help you use your glutes when running; Reinforce the gluteal firing pattern with specific running drills and workouts ; Let’s take each of those stages one-by-one, and explore them a little further. I've started running again and I've noticed that my endurance is picking back up, but that my quads are doing a lot more work than my glutes. This thread is archived. Contrary to popular opinion, they only get glute activation to at most 30% of MVC, while others can get glute activation to over 120%. Not engaging the glute muscle during exercise is a very common issue. So get bear-foot and learn to engage your glutes with these quick and easy, at home yoga poses. No? If your glutes weren't working, then your hips would shoot up then you'd get stuck in a good morning position. 1. Getting to know your glutes is key to activating them during exercise. share. It may be due to wearing shoes too often. save hide report. Perhaps I am stuck in physical therapy land but, engaging glutes or core is an autonomic response while riding. They sure make the "glute-ham tie-in" sore, but they don't make the upper glutes sore, nor do they cause a burn or a pump in the glutes like the exercises listed above.

The quads extend the knee, and the glutes extend the hip.