Glute Medius - The Weakest Muscle in Your Lower Body!

Your glute medius is pound for pound the weakest muscle in your lower body. This is because unless you are directly training it, the glute medius is going to have a tendency to get weak and dominated by the more heavily concentrated on muscles like the quads and hamstrings. In this video, I show you how to easily address the weakness in the glute medius muscle and three ways to progress the exercises depending on your current strength level.

First thing you need to know is whether or not you have a glute medius that is too weak. If you get knee pain during squats or deadlifts, you may very well have a weak glute medius on one or both sides. If you get an intense burn and fatigue in your hips when you do a simple side leg lift, you may in fact have weak glutes. If your hips drop when you stand on one leg, you most definitely have a weakness and it needs to be addressed.

Here I show you a basic bodyweight exercise to strengthen the glute medius. This is a great option since it is closed chain. This means in the case of this exercise, that the foot is in contact with the ground on the working leg as you train the muscles in the hips. The leg furthest from the wall is the one you will be working on.

Begin by lifting the leg closest to the wall and bending the hip and knee ninety degrees. From here allow your left leg muscles to get lazy as you let your pelvis drop to the right. You should now see that your pelvis and hips are slanted down and to the right a pretty good amount. The only way you will be able to restore a level pelvis is to slowly and concertedly contract the glute medius on the left leg.

Try to slowly contract this muscle to lift the hips back up to level and even a bit beyond. You should feel an intense squeeze in your glutes on the left leg if you are doing this correctly. Aim to complete 20 reps in a slow controlled fashion if you can. If this variation is too easy, simply place the physioball on the wall on the outside of your non working leg. You will now use the resistance of the ball to make the driving of the outside hip even harder.

[chozart]

Why does Jeff have a video for every single problem I ever have? We are not worthy. 🙏

[VMR]

This is not a problem only body builders have. I am a runner and I messed up my knees just by running with weak glutes. THANK God for people who enlighten us like this guy. After I started working on my glutes, my knees felt better, literally within DAYS!!!

[bobysurya]

im a 40 years old from indonesia. 2 days ago i tried this exercise, then i heard a click sound from my right knee. God it jeff u know what, its just fix my 15 years knee injury not totally recovered but it feels much much better, i cant run for 15 minutes because this injury. Today i tried excercise from how to fix round shoulder, when i push my shoulder against wall another CLICK sound, and surprisingly my shoulder injury i got from calithenic movement 1 month ago i wasnt expecting that. Mr Jeff Cavalier you are a life saver. as a gratidude i gonna get your product and follow this channel for my entire life. God bless you Jeff, time to hit back to gym

[theother]

For me, strengthening glute medius as well as my quads (by doing wall sits) was instrumental in avoiding knee pain from running. It's a muscle group that really deserves more attention

[jaave]

I recently ruptured my ACL and have been doing pre-hab to prepare for surgery. I have been doing a lot of single leg work and only just realised how weak my glute medius is. If only I'd have seen this video 12 months ago. I have watched a few of your videos now and I think they're very good. To think you're giving this stuff away for free is amazing really. Fair play to you, you're making a difference

[theviewer]

My right hip has always hurt for some reason and I tried to fix it with a lot of things, stretches, other exercises. This exercise just now eradicated a problem I've had for 5 years, in 5 minutes.

[collegchick]

I love your videos ... I am a nurse in orthopedics and I even suggest your videos to my patients that want to still work out however may have some restrictions... Thank you for your videos

[gawebm]

This video has helped me sleep again. 2 years ago I went to Kaiser with pain in both hips that was making it difficult for me to sleep at night. I went through their physical therapy and continued it for many months. It didn't help and my pain got worse. I have to sleep on my sides and the night-time pain wold wake me up repeatedly.

So I started searching for answers and came across your video and decided to try it. At first it didn't feel like it was doing anything - but I stuck with it. After about a week I started to feel the tension in the area of my pain. After two weeks of just doing these once or twice a day I started sleeping thru the night for the first time in two years. I'm a 64 year old guy who has always worked out, but never this particular muscle/exercise. This has really helped changed my life and I felt I owed it to you to tell you my story. Thank you. Please ignore all the stupid comments you receive and keep doing what you do. This is one old man who you really helped and I truly appreciate it.

[NorkusMartynas]

I'm gonna do all these exercises and everyone will be admiring how strong my glute medius is!

[theodora_pilates]

I love how he clearly doesn't hurt while doing these, but acts like it to emphasize the purpose lol.

[southsideshenanigans]

Jeff, thanks for posting this video. Competed in track and cross country for ten years. A glute medius tear almost ended my career prematurely. All because they were ignored for years. After being out for over 6 months and being in physical therapy for even longer, I learned my lesson. Now I coach and make sure my guys are not over looking muscle groups and teach them how certain muscles, when activated, help other muscles distribute the work load more evenly. Thanks again your videos are very helpful.

[rodbrakes]

FINALLY!

This is one of the most overlooked muscles in the body and it's great to see it being covered. Doing this exercise and the progressions from this WILL give good results. I went from running with constant hamstring pain, to setting personal best times in 3 months, all thanks to focusing on the glute med. and supporting muscle groups.

[Kris-puzl]

I currently work for a large soft tissue injury company and the glute medius is the cause to a lot of back, lateral hip and knee pain. People are astonished when we test the muscle and they see how weak it can become especially compared to normal. I typically will have someone do some self MFR on the musculature before performing strengthening exercise as it tends to help "wake up" the muscle before rehab. Keep up the good work with your videos. I really enjoy following your channel.

[CaptainManic]

I can't believe how much I learn from you.

Even in hindsight it blows me away.

I've already saved this video...I had meant to start working on it...already added extra glute maximus work due to lower back pain and your suggestions.

Got an injury...liked and saved this video years ago...wish I'd actually acted on it...turns out my knee injury is because of weak glutes...and the best exercises are this...and the one I'm already implementing (courtesy of jeff...glute bridges for activation and strength) to fix it...3 months of work and I'm gonna be back to full training regimen.

Thank you so much Jeff. you're awesome.

[wapsheli]

Just want to say your hip exercises have helped my lower back pain immensely. Just the recognition of how weak my hips truly were. Thank you so much Jeff.

[rickjason]

The banded version is one of the best and easiest glute med exercises I've ever done. Strangely enough other therapists reference this video. Congratulations Jeff for figuring out a way to isolate the glute med. I've had so much trouble with glute med syndrome over the last12 years. Thanks again.

[awakeningnuenergy]

I want to thank you for this video, I am a massage therapist with most of my clients both male and female who suffer with hip. back, kneel and leg pain. I am going to refer your video to them that's for sure.

[julieh]

Superb information again. I have a knee problem, flaring up when jogging - I've had to stop completely. the physio hasn't even MENTIONED going glute exercises and I now have a hunch that THIS is the problem. Your exercises are going to reap me some tangible benefits I think. Much appreciated.

[Canute]

Hurt my back doing the dead lift; it healed, then hurt my back again doing regular squats without weights.

Did this exercise and I found my hips are truth and in fact weak.

Thank you very much Jeff.

[JamesPawson]

I've been doing this for the past 6 weeks-- now it's so cool being able to flex a muscle I more or less didn't know I had.