Gluteus Medius Stabilisation for Back Pain Relief

Note: This is an edited (readable) version of the video transcription.
I want you to put your fingers on your hip bones and stand on one leg.

Now, does your hip twist? Does it turn from side to side? Do you feel really unstable on one leg? Do you poke out your hip trying to maintain balance on that leg? It could be that your gluteus medius, which attaches into your hip here, it might mean that it's not working, not doing the work that it should.

The gluteus medius stabilisation helps our leg to abduct away, come out to the side, and it also stabilises our pelvis as well.

So if you're really unstable on one leg, let's have a look at ways that we can work that gluteus medius so that you can be more stable and hopefully have some back pain relief as a women over 50. Let's have a look. So one of the exercises is a clam on the chair.

I'm just gonna sit up tall and I'm gonna keep my feet together, taking my knees out to the side. Now, if you've got a TheraBand at home that you can tie a little knot in, you can bring that over your feet, put it up over your knees, sitting up, so you might need to come to the end of your chair, sitting up nice and tall, and we're just gonna take these knees out to the side. Now, this is a sitting up clam, but there's a few other ways to do a clam.

Let's head down to the floor and have a look. Move number two is a fire hydrant. So we're just gonna come on the floor.

If you've got sore knees, you may wanna put something under your knees. We're gonna make sure the knees are directly under our hips, gonna come down to our elbows on the floor. These elbows are directly underneath my shoulders.

And from here, we're gonna hold that core on and we're simply gonna lift this knee out to the side. So a fire hydrant is just taking that knee out to the side and bringing it in. You can do this without a band, your choice whether you wanna do it with a band.

A band certainly works for me a lot harder and try not to roll too much over, trying to hold yourself there. You'll also find that the leg on the floor is also working hard for you. Of course, where we do one side, we then do the other. 

So here I've got a rolled up towel. I'm just gonna put it beside my knee on the wall and I'm a little way up from the wall. I'm not leaning into the wall, I don't have my shoulder on the wall. But what I am going to do here is I am gonna go down into a small squat.

So just a little squat, like I'm trying to sit down on a little chair behind me. There's a little press of that knee against. I'm gonna have my feet in here.

And from here, I'm just gonna take out, my outer leg is gonna come out in a kind of a clam. It's just gonna reach out against the resistance of the band while this knee is pressing in. Now you'll feel both of your glutes working.

Both your gluteus medius stabilisation muscles are doing work. But this one here just comes in. It can take a little rotation in if you want, but taking it out is the main move that we're gonna do while we stay in that squat position.

So maybe while we're in that squat position, take about 12 lifts, rotations out with this knee, turn to the other side and do about two to three rounds of those. I hope you can feel your glutes. I can feel mine working hard.

And this is my favourite one. I do it with clients a lot. We're gonna be in a plank on the floor.

So elbows straight underneath the shoulder, not too far out, not too far in. I'm gonna lift up my hips. You can have a hand there if you want.

Gonna take out that leg and just hold. Now, if you wanna play around with that, you can take that leg back a bit further, usually a lot harder. You can play around with that, take it forward, take it back.

But you're just trying to keep that leg up in the air, maybe for up to 10 seconds, bring it down, have a break. Go up with your hip again and take out that leg. Maybe slightly back if that's a bit harder for you, may as well make it, do what you can.

And what's good about this is that you're working both glutes at the same time. So when I'm up in this side plank with a lift, I'm working this glute and this glute. So I'm working both at the same time.

I hope you've enjoyed those. Have a try and let me know how you go. I would do these three to four times a week and over a period of three to four to six weeks, three, four, five weeks, you should feel a bit of a difference in your back pain if your gluteus medius is the problem.

Have fun with it, let me know how you find it.