Trouble Activating Your Glutes? These 3 Weekly Habits Helped Me Recruit Key Muscles for Faster Runs

For the longest time, I didn’t understand how glute strength translated to runs. I just knew that I loved lifting weights. But over the past few years, I’ve learned that the glutes play a major role in strong running form, powering your stride and offering stability through every step.

Strong glutes ensure your pelvic floor muscles, core, and legs can all work together synergistically to make you faster and more powerful in every stride. Unfortunately, many runners struggle with inactive glutes or “dead butt syndrome,” in which the muscles don’t turn on to fully support your mechanics. Firing up my glute muscles while running is a piece of the puzzle that I hadn’t fully nailed down—until recently.

Curious about translating glute strength into powerful runs, I spoke with Hamilton and picked up three strategies to help wake up my backside. Steal them for yourself for a stronger stride. Runners often develop gluteal amnesia or “dead butt syndrome” from sitting too much or neglecting glute exercises.

Without glute strength powering your runs, you risk running without pelvic stability. If the hip on your weight-bearing side is a little bit weak, then your hip will dip down further,” Hamilton says. Over time, this can lead to poor knee alignment, injuries like IT band syndrome, and it can waste energy that could otherwise help you run faster, she explains.

Plus, when your glutes don’t fire, your body can overcompensate by shifting load to other muscle groups like your hamstrings and lower back muscles, leading to more injury risk or fatigue. Plus, the more strength you build in key running muscles (i.e., your glutes), the more power and speed you build, which equals a better chance at a PR. As one of many runners who works a desk job, I know I have to make up for glute activation and glute strength in my workouts not only for the sake of my long-term health, but also for faster, more powerful run performances.

Here’s what I do to make that happen. Activating a muscle has to happen in order to use it, so some warmup drills before runs (and strength workouts) help you wake up your muscles before you challenge them, says Hamilton. One of my favorite things to do before a run is activate my core and glutes with some light dumbbell and bodyweight movements for about 10 minutes.