How do you activate your glutes? How can you be sure your glutes are activating?

My kids and wife assure me that my glutes are activating all the time, but like you I'm not sure how exactly I can cultivate this activation. Some claim through diet.

At the end of the day, you can tell they're activating by feeling the synergy.

If your glutes weren’t activated, you’d be crawling in the ground.

Train like Mattie Rogers:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-pzSkPB1gY/

It might not necessarily be that your glutes are not firing, but that your calves are simply not strong enough. And that could be solved by either doing some supplemental calf strength training or giving yourself some extra rest days or decrease the intensity of your runs to allow your body to adapt before you start developing lower leg problems like has happened to many runners. If your glutes were not firing, it is POSSIBLE that it would present as a calf problem but you would likely experience pain in other areas as well.

If you're still not sure, try one or some of those methods first for a few weeks. You've got plenty of time anyway.

I want a serious answer

Then what is the point of glute activation exercises?

ihaveaquestion wrote:

Then what is the point of glute activation exercises?

to activate your glutes better

And what are some exercises that will best help me do that?

I've just done an 8 month try with this, and have come just about full circle. For 34 years of my running, the balance between using quads vs. glutes was biased toward quads. Maybe I used my glutes substantially too, I don't know how to judge that. But I never had the sensation of my glutes firing, but often had the sensation of my quads powering me up hills. It may have been due to coming to running from cycling when I started. One consequence of that, I think, it that my normal running cadence was high, about 92-94 for easy paces (185 spm), 100+ (200 spm) when racing. For many years, people were always telling me that my stride looked short. I can't say that it had any negative for me though: I was injury free for my first 22+ years of running; I ran fast; I ran far (somewhere around 100,000 lifetime miles), my shoes lasted thousands of miles.

Last July, I was experimenting and figured out how to use my glutes more. It was slightly awkward for me at first, then became natural. One immediate consequence was that my cadence slowed down, to around typical for most runners (174). I started feeling muscles in my butt firing while running.

I didn't make the connection at the time, but last fall, I started having some knee instability. A knee would almost feel like it was giving out unexpectedly at times. I got a tip from my GF on knee stability exercises, basically variations of tensing your quad muscles. That helped fix the knee stability right away, but if I stopped doing them, the instability would come back a couple weeks later. I chalked it up to getting older until I noticed I was having a hard time walking up the stairs in my house, as well as steep hills on the trails. My once strong quads had become super weak.

Since last July, I've averaged 80-85 mpw. Recently, I've been feeling like my butt muscles (glutes) have just been worn out, not able to recover. I think I've gotten too glute dominant. My glutes can't quite handle the load, and my quads got weak from disuse. In the past week, I've deliberately used my quads more, as I used to, and things have gotten better quickly. My quads are stronger, I can walk/run up the stairs in my house again.

I'm not sure I can say the whole experiment was a dud for me though, because my cadence is still a lower than before, which I like. But maybe my original form is still the best balance for me.

And the issue for me is that my running is currently dominated by the calves, which is unsustainable.

It might just be that you have very tight calves.

ihaveaquestion wrote:

And the issue for me is that my running is currently dominated by the calves, which is unsustainable.

Running is primarily a calf/hamstring activity.

Don't believe the nonsense about quads and glutes. There is an exercise form that targets exactly these two muscles instead of calves and hamstrings - it's called cycling (and glute activation in cycling is a huge thing, I just can't do it but look at pro riders it's the biggest muscle and they derive so much power from it).

ihaveaquestion wrote:

I want a serious answer

have someone run behind you and watch closely

ihaveaquestion wrote:

While running, I can feel my calves become sore while I feel nothing in my glutes. What exercises can I do to ensure my glutes are activating? How can I tell if they are activating?

Just because it's not sore doesn't mean you aren't using it.

As for exercises: bring your knee out in front of you and then use some form of resistance while bringing it back down. Bonus points for exercises where your knee comes up high in front of you and then it ends up pointing towards the ground behind you.

Relax, “Firing the gluts”is a nonsense phrase. Anyone who runs or even stands, he’s gluts are working fine. If you feel your calves after running, most likely it’s them who are weak, not the gluts.

But in general to strengthen gluts do Mainly squats, deadlifts and Hip thrusts.

Ggggg wrote:

Relax, “Firing the gluts”is a nonsense phrase. Anyone who runs or even stands, he’s gluts are working fine. If you feel your calves after running, most likely it’s them who are weak, not the gluts.

But in general to strengthen gluts do Mainly squats, deadlifts and Hip thrusts.

I'm not so sure about this -- having weak glutes/hips can cause your calves to work overtime, especially if you are a forefoot runner.

I like to do things like squats, lunges, bridges pre-run to, excuse my phrasing, get my glutes firing. Is there any science to support that firing up the glutes is/isn't a thing? I mean I've worked with PT folks who have looked at my form. I have struggled with calves cramping or weakness and I notice a difference when I'm doing the pre-run stuff in where I feel it during the run. I think it really helps. I feel like I get my body to work more from the glutes/hip. Post-run, I like clamshells and leg extensions. Other mobility stuff is good too.

Glute bridges, single leg deadlift, clamshells are all good. For me, glutes not activating can result in knee pain.

If I get sore calves, it means I am landing too far forward on foot. Shifting landing slightly back, solves problem.

Thumbs up on Infeld's video. Looks excellent.