Unfortunately, I’ve found that getting the glutes to fire is sometimes a little more difficult than just hammering out a couple sets of glute activation exercises. 

While fire hydrants and hip lifts will often do the trick, many still don’t experience much in the way of glute activation during these movements.  In some of these cases, the glutes simply won’t fire (you can see this if they’re not contracting) and the synergistic muscles that share the same functions will compensate.

If your standard glute activation routine isn’t working for you, there might be something else preventing your glute from firing.  Here are another couple possible scenarios:

1. Your Piriformis is too tight.

While the piriformis is most commonly known to trap the sciatic nerve (which mimics the feeling of sciatica), it can also compress the superior gluteal nerve.  When this branch is compressed it can limit the contraction of the gluteus medius and minimus and cause weakness in hip extension, lateral rotation.

In this case, you could do activation work until you’re blue in the face, but until you get that piriformis to lenghten you’re going to get nowhere.

Try this stretch and hold for 30 seconds prior to your glute activation routine.

2.  You’ve got compression at your lumbar spine.

If stretching the piriformis doesn’t improve the activation of your glute on one side try having a friend or training partner tug briefly 2-3 times on the leg on the side that won’t fire with moderate force.  This slight bit of lumbar traction often rectifies the problem.

If this works for you and your glutes start firing you’ll want to be cautious when choosing exercises that cause further compression.  Otherwise, you should be sure to continue having someone around to “stretch you out” to allow proper nerve activity to that glute.

I should note here that some people don’t believe that lumbar traction is effective.  However, I use it regularly with my clients with great success. 

Give these techniques a go and get your glutes back in gear!

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If you want more great info on lower body muscle imbalances check out Muscle Imbalances Revealed too!