Are Your Glutes Actually "Weak", or Just Deactivated?
Key insights: 60-second read
- Weak vs. inhibited - Many "weak glutes" are actually inhibited by dysfunction elsewhere in the body, not genuinely weak.
- Test before you treat - A simple clam or side-lying abduction test gives you a baseline to measure the effectiveness of any intervention.
- The spinal connection - Stiffness at the base of your rib cage and top of your lower back can deactivate or short-circuit glute function.
- Immediate feedback - Mobilising that restricted spinal segment can produce an instant improvement in glute strength that you can reproduce yourself.
I want to show you how to figure out whether your weak glutes are actually weak, or just inhibited or deactivated by something else.
As a physiotherapist clinically, I've seen a lot of patients over the years who have come in with weak glutes. But when we find and treat any local lower back restrictions, it turns out that they're not physically weak - they're just inhibited. All because of dysfunction coming from somewhere else.
Thankfully, there are some very simple things you can do to figure out whether this relates to you. So let's get into it.
"If you are stiff, tight, and restricted at the base of your rib cage and the top of your lower back, this section of your spine can inhibit, deactivate, or short-circuit the function of your gluteal muscles."
On this page
1. The Baseline Strength Test
Before we get to the exercise, we need to take an initial baseline measurement of how strong or weak your glute muscles feel currently. This gives us something to compare it to after doing the exercise, so you can categorically understand whether it's actually having an impact.
Clinical insight
For the best results, do a baseline test of your glute strength, then immediately retest after the spinal mobility drill. This tangible, repeatable approach helps you see the real effect for yourself, rather than just taking my word for it.
How to perform the baseline test
Lie down on your side and perform some clamshells. Ideally, you would have someone resisting your leg and taking note of how strong or weak it feels. If you don't have another person, just do five or six clams as high as you feel comfortable going without rolling backwards. Take a general sense of:
- How many you feel you can do before you start to notice fatigue
- How that fatigue feels for you
The other thing you can try is having your legs out straight and doing a sidelying abduction movement to test the same thing. The purpose is to do a movement that gives you a strong sense of how strong or potentially weak your hip muscles feel, because we're going to use this as a baseline to come back to.
2. The Spinal Mobility Exercise
What I've come to understand is that if you are stiff, tight, and restricted at the base of your rib cage and the top of your lower back, this section of your spine can inhibit, deactivate, or short-circuit the function of your gluteal muscles.
How to perform the spinal mobility drill
The exercise can be done using a foam roller or a lacrosse ball, tennis ball, spikey ball - whatever you've got around the house.
Step-by-step:
- Place the foam roller at the junction of the base of your rib cage and your lumbar spine.
- Lie down onto your back over the roller and gently recline backwards as far as you feel comfortable.
- Hunt around for anything that feels stiff, tight, hard, thick, or restricted. It may feel tender; it may not.
- Compare the left-hand side to the right-hand side.
- Once you've found the side and the area that feels the most restricted, spend some time there, letting the roller push into the soft tissue and joints of your spine.
- If there's some soft tissue restriction over the top, you can tense the muscles in between your back and the roller for 5 to 10 seconds. When you stop tensing, they'll give a little bit, and you might find it softens up a little more, allowing you to go that little bit further.
- Gently move the roller up a little bit or down a little bit to find the next most relevant spot, then repeat.
Be respectful and breathe your way through things.
3. Retesting Your Glute Strength
Once you've spent time mobilizing anything that feels stiff or tight, immediately retest your glute strength again.
Take note of how it now feels. When does your fatigue kick in? Could you do more reps? Did it feels generally easier?
If it does, then your back may be the root cause of why your glutes feel weak.
"If you do this exercise and feel like your strength magically returns to some degree, then that's a real effect you can reproduce going forwards. It may save you from having to do 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks of glute strength training just for that reason."
4. Why This Happens & The Role of Daily Posture
There has to be a genuine reason why everything happens to the human body - at least musculoskeletally. In the same vein as trying to understand why one or both of your glutes feel weaker, there also has to be a reason why that exact part of your spine has become stiff, tight, and restricted.
And to figure this out, I find it best to consider the things you do the most with your body the most throughout the day. Not necessarily the active, interesting things, but the more stationary, sedentary set positions that you get into.
For most people, that might be sitting. The shapes and postures you might be putting your back into the most - whether you're on the couch at home, driving long distance, standing leaning over a bench top, sitting on the couch using your phone, or using your computer - might be overloading the same section of your back that has become stiff.
Clinical insight
Where the hinge goes, the load goes. If you're isolating a certain part of your spine and putting more load through that area, your body will naturally start to reinforce that area with joint stiffness and muscle tightness over time.
If we don't ultimately have a conversation about what you can do to improve these spinal shapes and positions - ones that might be physically deactivating the muscle strength in your glutes - then we may never solve the issue long-term.
One profound insight from this post
"Glute weakness isn't always about muscle size or strength. It can be about inhibition. By addressing related restrictions in the spine, you can sometimes 'unlock' glute function immediately, without any direct strengthening."
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if my glutes are truly weak or just inhibited?
The test-retest method is key. If you perform a spinal mobility drill and immediately see an improvement in your glute strength, it suggests inhibition was a factor. If there's no change, the weakness may be more structural and require targeted strengthening.
Why does spinal stiffness affect glute strength?
There are neural connections in the spine - dermatomes and reflex pathways - that can "turn down" the signal to your gluteal muscles when there's restriction or irritation. This is a protective mechanism, but it can become counterproductive when it persists unnecessarily.
Is foam rolling my lower back safe?
Yes, when done correctly and with respect for your body's signals. The lower back isn't fragile or vulnerable to pressure, but if you have any concerns or a history of spinal issues, consult a healthcare professional first.
How often should I do this spinal mobility drill?
You can perform it daily if you find it helpful. The key is also to address the underlying postural habits - like prolonged sitting in poor positions - that may be creating the stiffness in the first place. Think of it as both a treatment and a diagnostic tool.
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