Everyone’s obsessed with stronger glutes – here’s how they can help ease knee and back pain

I am convinced that we are living in the age of the posterior. And by that, I am referring to the current obsession that people have with their buttocks – specifically, attempts to achieve the round, juicy rear popularised by the Kardashians, booty-boosting legging brands and influencers deadlifting their ways to more followers. 

If you're wondering why there's now a wait for the hip thrust machine at the gym, the increased interest in gluteal workouts might be reflecting changing ideas about health, beauty and identity, said Choo Jia Yi, a senior physiotherapist with National University Hospital's Department of Rehabilitation. "There may be a change in preference for strong and athletic looks," she said. 

The shift shouldn't be gender-specific either. Long before the pivot in aesthetics, Choo added, physiotherapists, trainers and health professionals have long emphasised the glutes' roles in posture, lower-limb alignment and back health – attributes you don't have to be female to covet.

There's also the performance side, said Benson Poh, the founder and a personal trainer at Vigeo Personal Training. "Strength and conditioning coaches have always understood that the glutes are central to power output, force transfer, and athletic movement. Sprinting, jumping, changing direction does not work well without strong glutes."

Even if you have no wish to build a better booty to pad up your jeans, there are some very good reasons for paying attention to your rear: knee pain and lower back aches. Find out how.

HOW DOES A WEAK REAR CAUSE KNEE AND BACK PAIN?

The gluteal muscles – consisting mainly of the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus – account for around 16 per cent to 18 per cent of your total skeletal muscle mass, said Choo. Together, they play some very important mobility functions. 

"Strong gluteal muscles are essential for stable, pain‑free and efficient movement," she said. "They support posture, protect the knees and lower back, and power everyday activities like walking and climbing stairs."

For example, the glutes are responsible for preventing your knees from rolling inwards as you walk, squat or climb the stairs. When your glutes are weak and cannot control the inward roll, extra stress is placed on the kneecap and surrounding tissues, said Choo. Over time, this is what leads to knee pain. 

Poor glute activation can just as well mess up the hip. When the hip joints are not evenly activated or loaded, smaller stabilising muscles in the hip have to work overtime, which can progressively irritate the tendons or joint structures, Choo warned. 

Weak glutes are also the culprits for reducing your hip's extension power, the very movement your body needs to sprint, jump or simply transition from sitting to standing. As a result, "the lower back muscles compensate to generate movement; this leads to overuse and tension in the lower back," said Choo.

WOULDN’T WALKING AND CLIMBING THE STAIRS ALREADY WORK THE GLUTES?

"Most everyday activities don’t challenge the glutes enough to make them stronger," said Choo. "Walking, casual running, and stair climbing are low‑load, repetitive activities. Once your body gets used to them, the glutes do the minimum work needed, not enough to stimulate strength gains."

For glute muscles to strengthen, she said, they need resistance, progressive load and intentional activation. Everyday activities usually lack deep-hip flexion, external resistance, and slower, controlled movements. "That’s why targeted exercises such as squats, lunges and hip hinges are more effective for glute strength," she said.

Age is another obstacle, according to Poh. “As you get older, muscles naturally decline in both size and strength. That decline accelerates if you're not actively training it,” he said. “Everyday activities might maintain a baseline level of glute function but they won't reverse decline or build the reserve of strength you need as you age.”

DOES GROWING A BIGGER REAR MEAN YOU HAVE STRONGER GLUTES?

Growing a butt for aesthetics and building one for functional purposes can't be done in exactly the same way, said Poh. 

When you're training for a fuller, rounder rear, the primary goal is to increase muscle size. “You want exercises that are stable enough to allow you to load the glutes heavily and create high levels of tension within the muscle fibres. Think hip thrusts with heavy weights and machine-based isolation work. The stress needs to be high and consistent, so that the muscles respond by growing,” he said.

Functional training is a different ballgame. “Functionally strong glute muscles need to do multiple things simultaneously: produce power to accelerate movement, decelerate movement to control load, and stabilise the pelvis during complex patterns. It needs to time its firing correctly and coordinate with the hamstrings, core and lower body as a whole.”

But there are instances when the two training modules can overlap. “Say you’re moving well functionally, your glutes are firing and your pelvis is stable but your glutes are simply weak,” Poh explained. “In that case, you can absolutely borrow from the aesthetic playbook and use heavier, more isolated loading to build strength.”

Conversely, functional exercises, when done well, can also introduce significant stress to the glutes and drive aesthetic improvement, he said. “Aesthetic-focused exercises, when they build genuine strength, can carry over into better movement quality and function.” At the end of the day, Poh summed up, it's about understanding what you need and choosing how to apply the exercises.

WHAT ARE THE BEST EXERCISES FOR THE GLUTES?

Poh listed the following five exercises that are great to "improve strength, muscle growth and train the movement of how the glutes function in everyday life" – along with their common mistakes and cues to get them right. 

The hip thrust, he highlighted, veers more towards aesthetics than function as the movement doesn't exactly replicate how the glutes move when you're standing or walking. "But it maximises tension in the glutes in an isolated manner. There is also research that shows hip thrusts can improve sprinting."

1. Deadlift 

Cues: Push the hips back first, keep a neutral spine, and feel the stretch through the glutes and hamstrings as the weight descends. The drive comes from the hips, not the lower back. 

Mistakes: Rounding the back to lower the bar instead of hinging at the hips, which means bending at the hips while maintaining a neutral spine and keeping a slight bend in the knees. 

The second mistake is keeping the knees too straight. When that happens, the hamstrings take over as the primary mover and the glutes become a passenger. You need enough knee bend early in the movement, so the glutes can load properly and drive the lift. 

2. B-stance deadlift

Cues: The pelvis needs to stay square and face downward throughout the movement. In this position, the glutes will have to work hard to both control the hinge and stabilise the hips. 

Keep 80 per cent to 90 per cent of your weight on the front leg. The rear foot should only have enough pressure to keep you from falling over.

Mistakes: Same as the deadlift but with an added mistake: letting the pelvis rotate open (not seen in the video). When the hip of the lifted leg turns outward, the glute of the working leg can no longer stretch properly or stabilise the movement. 

The other common mistake is resting the entire rear foot on the floor. This causes you to rely on it too much for support, which ruins the unilateral or single-leg benefit of the exercise. 

3. Hip thrust 

Cues: Keep the toes pointing forward or slightly outwards, tuck the hips in and slow lift the butt off the floor. When lifted, the feet should be below the knees. 

Mistakes: Hyperextending the lower back at the top of the movement. When that happens, the lower back is doing the work instead of the glutes. 

The second issue is foot placement. Feet that are too far forward or too far back change the position of the glutes, where they can't fire effectively. 

At the top of the movement, the pelvis should be neutral – not tilted forward – and the glutes should be fully contracted. If you feel it more in your lower back than your glutes, the setup needs adjusting. 

4. Step ups 

Cue: Drive through the heel of the front foot, control the descent, and feel the glutes of the working leg doing the work in both directions.

Mistakes: Using momentum to propel the body upward rather than driving through the working leg. People tend to bounce off the back foot and cheat their way up, which means the glutes of the front leg don’t do much work. 

The second mistake is coming down too fast. The eccentric phase, or the controlled lowering, is where a significant amount of the training stimulus comes from. Dropping down quickly wastes it. 

The third issue is knee dominant stepping. When the knee drives forward excessively, instead of the hip hinging back and the body leaning slightly forward, the quadriceps (thigh muscles) take over and the glute contribution drops significantly. 

5. Bulgarian split squat 

Cue: Push the hips back as you descend, feel the stretch in the glutes of the front leg at the bottom, and drive through the heel on the way up.

Mistakes: Placing the front foot too close or far from the bench, and keeping the torso too upright. That combination shifts almost all the stress onto the quadriceps and takes the glutes out of the equation. 

To load the glutes properly, the front foot needs to be further out and the torso should lean slightly forward. The rear foot elevation should also be at a height that is comfortable and controlled, not so high that it forces the pelvis into a poor position. 

HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU TRAIN THE GLUTES?

Poh recommended spreading glute training two or three times over the week rather than having a singular “glute day”. “The glutes are involved in many fundamental movements such as squatting, hinging and single leg work. It is more effective to train them a few times per week through different movement patterns.”

He also suggested pairing glute exercises with those that work the hamstrings such as Romanian deadlifts, hip thrusts and leg curls. “The hip-hinge pattern ties them together. The volume can be split between the two groups without one overwhelming the other,” he said.

Training the glutes and quads together – step ups, Bulgarian split squats and hip thrusts – is another good combo. It targets the whole lower body, and covers the muscles in the front and back, said Poh. 

You can also pair a glute-focused exercise with a pulling or pushing upper-body exercise in the same session, advised Poh. “The lower body does not compete for recovery resources with the upper body significantly.”

WHAT SHOULD YOU AVOID DOING?

It's generally not a good idea to pair glute exercises with workouts that train the lower back heavily. “Combining high-volume hip thrusts with heavy, spinal-loading exercises (such as barbell back squat, and heavy good mornings) in the same session accumulates significant posterior chain and lumbar fatigue. For older adults especially, this is a fatigue and injury risk that isn't worth managing,” said Poh.

It’s also not a good idea to stack “multiple, heavy, hip-hinge movements like deadlifts, hip thrusts, and back extensions in the same workout”, he said, which can lead to excessive fatigue and reduced movement quality.

If you intend to perform technical lifts that require high levels of coordination, timing, balance, and precision such as the snatch (it involves lifting the barbell from the floor to overhead in one continuous, fluid motion), it's best not to heavily fatigue your glutes beforehand, advised Poh. 

And while the glutes are large, powerful muscles, Choo said they can be overtrained. "Increasing the weight, volume or frequency too aggressively is one of the biggest contributors to injuries. Adopting proper technique is crucial over increasing the load."

You may need to adjust your training load rather than push through if you experience pain or deep aching in the buttocks or discomfort that lingers for days, she advised.