4 Hip Activation Exercises For Lower Back Pain | Easy to Hard
If you battle low back pain after a workout, one area I would suggest looking into is your hip/glute strength.
When it comes to life after a fusion or any disc injury, our bodies tend to respond in weird ways. For some, you bounce back quickly as if nothing happened, but for others, it could lead to babying certain areas of the body, which leads to overcompensation or overworking of muscles that shouldn’t have to work as hard.
If this sounds like something you may be dealing with, I suggest adding at least 2 glute exercises you see in this video to your weekly program (each day).
Before you do that, though, let’s dive into 4 of the best glute activation exercises for lower back pain from easiest to hard!
If you need help learning what makes a back-friendly workout and where you can plug these hip activation exercises into that new back-friendly workout be sure to grab my Pain-Free Training Blueprint
How Do You Work Your Glutes With Lower Back Pain?
This is an excellent question because it’s not enough to train your glutes more.
How you train your glutes is important because if glutes are the issue for you, you have to slow it way down and make sure when you’re going to train the glutes, you’re not bypassing them, triggering the low back.
That’s doing nothing but picking the scab.
So when working your glutes with lower back pain, I suggest honing in on these few areas:
ONE:
Slow the movement way down. Don’t just go through the motions but make sure you feel the glutes working.
TWO:
Activate the glutes before moving. Nascar drivers don’t start their engines and take off once the flag drops to start the race.
NO, their engines are already running. Their tires are warmed up, so everything is already ready to go when the race starts.
Think of the exercise like a race, and the Glutes are the engine. So start the engine (contract/activate the glutes) before the race starts (before doing the exercise). So when you’re doing the exercise, you can make sure the glutes are the muscle group doing the work and not your lower back.
THREE:
Relax the back. This is more of a mental thing for me personally. You won’t be able to get the low back muscles to go completely soft, and that’s okay but what you want to make sure is not happening is over-bracing or over-contracting.
What Are The Best Glute Activation Exercises For Lower Back Pain?
To see these exercises broken down be sure to check out the full video above!
Glute Activation Exercise #1: Figure 4’s
There is not a lot to this exercise, so be sure to watch how to do it, but essentially, what you’re doing is trying t lift the bent knee off the ground without twisting or using any other muscles other than the glutes.
It’s a slight movement but is super effective!
Glute Activation Exercise #2: Clamshell
The clamshell is a great hip activation exercise for lower back pain relief. It’s often overlooked but can be highly effective if done correctly.
I break down some critical cues, but here’s a snapshot of how to do it.
Be sure to hinge at the ankle with your feet stacked and only go as high as the GLUTE will allow you to.
You can easily add bands around the knees to make this exercise even harder when ready.
Glute Activation Exercise #3: Glute Bridge
The glute bridge is one of my favorite midline exercises. It will challenge the mind-body connection and help establish an excellent neural drive between the brain and butt muscles.
Before lifting off, be sure to activate the glutes first, so the low back or hamstrings don’t take over.
Go nice and slow and hold at the top for 8 seconds with a good contraction.
Thie glute thrust exercise is a great launchpad to build strength and endurance in the glutes.
Similar to the exercises before this one, there are some key checkpoints you will want to make sure you have dialed in.
Start with just your bodyweight, and when you are confident in your ability to do this exercise without causing pain or sensitivity, you can start adding in the weight!
To really unlock the potential with these hip activation exercises I highly suggest you check out the full video!
