I sometimes hear people blaming various aspects of their running or running injuries on “weak glutes” or “lazy glutes”. In this article, I’ll define this and provide guidance on how to fix yours. Note that, it’s pretty rare that the glutes are too weak to run properly. Whilst stronger glutes will fatigue slower in longer races, they are a large group of muscles and normally general life activities are enough to make them strong enough to provide both power and stabilisation during running. It’s more likely that the glutes aren’t being used properly at the right times, which leads us on to the phrase “Lazy Glutes”.
However, Lazy Glutes is a bit of an oversimplification, because there are two distinct points where the glutes are often misused / mistimed. Some runners might get things right at one or the other point, and some might fail at both. So as you can imagine, the definition of lazy glutes is quite nuanced.
Glute activation when thigh reaches highest point – Lazy Glutes position 1
The first point where a runner might have lazy glutes is when the thigh reaches its highest point. Vast swathes of runners do very little with the glutes at this point, because they run like they walk. If they were to engage the glutes at this point, it would actively pull the thigh back down again quickly. Instead, they kick the calf through with the quads, which pulls the thigh down without the glutes and far too late. Or if they do use any glute action to pull the thigh down, it’s activated late. The end result is that the body lands on an outstretched leg, overstriding heavily on the heel, causing a backwards braking force vector; the body has to wait to pivot up and over the ankle, with long ground contact time, before it can start falling to the next step.
If they had contracted the glutes to pull the thigh down quickly, the foot would have landed much closer to them, with ankle nicely under the knee, so that the body can immediately start falling towards the next step. I wrote an article with a video explaining what it feels like to use the glutes to get the thigh down quickly. It also shows how you can feel the glutes activating or not activating. The required movement feels like trying to get the foot down to the ground quickly, or softly stamping towards the ground.
So the first half of the definition of Lazy Glutes is when the glutes do not activate after the thigh has reached maximum height to bring the thigh back down again, or do not activate soon enough.
Here is an image showing the moment the glutes on the left leg (nearest the camera) need to fire briefly to start pulling the left thigh backwards – this brings the whole leg down quickly.
Glute power and speed when foot touches down – Lazy Glutes position 2
The second point where a runner might have lazy glutes is when the foot touches down. The glutes always activate at this point to stabilise the leg and stop you falling over or to the side. However, many runners don’t use enough glute power / speed at this point, just doing the bare minimum. Why is this an issue? Remember the glutes are being used to pull the thigh backwards, but if power / speed is low, the thigh won’t go back very far. So why does that matter and what should we do instead?
If we focus on pulling the thigh back a little quicker during landing, the thigh will swing back further after the initial contraction, so will trail behind us in extension. At this point, elastic energy is stored in the hips, which is useful for efficiency. This stored energy is released when the foot comes off the ground, at which point, the thigh and foot ping forwards and up on their own. Without this stored energy, runners have to resort to lifting the thigh up again for the next step, using the hip-flexors, and lifting the foot up with the hamstring. The problem with this is that hip flexors are a much smaller muscle group than the glutes and thus fatigue more quickly than the glutes.
So if you use more glute power and speed when the foot touches the ground, there’s far less need for hip flexors and hamstrings to assist later on in the gait cycle, so fatigue in those areas is much slower. Note that the required movement feels like pressing down into the ground quickly, even though it’s actually the thigh moving back quickly.
So the second half of the definition of Lazy Glutes is when the glutes do not work with enough power and speed when the foot touches down.
Also, the faster you run using the glutes properly, the higher the foot will swing up behind you, like on the end of a rope, no effort required. If you see influencers saying you need to actively lift your foot up to run fast, you should question why it’s not doing that on its own. Similarly, if they say endurance runners need a lot of active knee drive (thigh lift), again why isn’t it happening on its own? Note: sprinting is a bit different, so check they aren’t a sprint coach.
Here is an image showing the left leg again. The glutes have already fired (in position 1 above) to bring the leg down quickly and the foot has reached the ground, with ankle nicely under the knee, the glutes will engage again. It’s here that they need to have a bit of extra power and speed to pull the thigh back a little faster, to take advantage of that elastic energy storage in the hips when the thigh ends up behind them.
Here is an image showing the left thigh now in extension behind the runner, ready to ping forwards efficiently again when that elastic energy stored in the hips is released at the moment the foot swings up off the floor.
Summary to avoid Lazy Glutes
When the thigh reaches its highest point, your glutes should contract briefly (like a twitch) to fire the thigh backwards with purpose, to avoid overstriding.
When the foot touches down, the glutes will contract again always, but if you can give it a bit more purpose and speed and then allow the thigh to trail behind you, you’ll gain efficiency from elastic energy storage in the hips, release of which will ping the thigh forwards and the foot up, on their own, delaying fatigue.
