Top 5 Glute Muscle Exercises For Knee Pain

Fixing knee pain for the long term requires a lot of but muscle strengthening. In today’s video, I’m going to cover my top five exercises that I give our patients to get their butt muscles stronger so that they can fix their knee problem for the long term.

Now doing butt muscle exercise strengthening is contrary to popular belief in the medical field. Because most healthcare professionals would recommend doing quad or hamstring strengthening those are the muscles on the front the quads on the back of the thigh, the hamstrings.

But the latest research is pretty darn clear on telling us that but muscle strength is directly correlated to better knee health. And we see proof of this every day when we’re working with our patients here in the clinic. When whenever we have them get their butt muscles strength up, it translates to their knee pain feeling better and better for the long term.

I’m Dr. David Mann off and I’m a specialist physical therapist over at El Paso manual physical therapy. This channel is focused on helping people stay healthy, active and mobile. while avoiding unnecessary surgery injections and medications. Be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss any helpful videos that we put out to help you with your overall body health.

Now before I go into all the exercises, I just want to give you a few tips so that you don’t end up trying these exercises out and hurting yourself. Three quick tips.

Number one, isolate your butt muscles as best as you can, every exercise every rep that you do. It’s so key because if you allow other muscles to start working like your quads, your hamstrings, your back muscles might also work the front of your hips is another popular place it’ll work, then you won’t be able to get the full effect of the butt muscles strengthening, you might also cause some issue in your body that could increase the knee pain, it could set off back pain or some other issue.

So really work to focus on firing your butt muscles, each exercise and each rep that you do. The second tip I’ve kind of already told you about avoid using your hamstrings specifically, and your back muscles. But I want to hang on this just a bit more because it is very possible for you to get a cramp or a charley horse like for the muscle to just tighten up really hard in the middle of the workout. And then you end up in pain later on or you can really set off a Sarika issue or, or it’s just not a fun experience.

So I want you to avoid getting any sort of cramps and all at the end of the video after I show the exercise is all detail a bit more about why that happens. But just if you’re starting the exercises, right now you’re going to follow me avoid any sort of cramps, just stop the exercise, skip that exercise or play with the motion and see if you can isolate the butt muscles a bit better. And the third tip, very important, you should not feel any worse in your knee pain during the exercise whenever you’re doing it.

And then afterwards, so if you do the exercises here in the next few minutes, you should feel better in your knees, you shouldn’t feel worse in your knees. Or even the next day, you should feel like you’re improving your knee problem as time goes on.

If you do feel worse in your knees, then that’s a sign that the tissues that are involved in your knee, whether it’s a ligament, a meniscus, the cartilage, you have arthritis or other issues that could be involved in the knee tendons, they are probably too irritated to take on these exercises right now.

So you might be in a state where you just need to rest and recover a bit, give it some time, so that it cools off the you know, the tissues are calmed down, they’re not so irritated and inflamed, then you’ll probably be better able to tolerate these exercises without increasing the knee pain.

So if you’re in that state, you’re jumping the gun a bit, you need to have the right amount of, you know, inflammation basically, or minimal inflammation in your knee joint, it can’t be real swollen or hot. Any it needs to be at a relatively healthy state to do these exercises without knee pain. And as you’re going through these exercises, just read your knee tell you have to kind of tune in and feel what’s going on.

If your quads are stretching a lot, that’s another high likelihood that’s going to, if your quads are stretching a lot, that’s another sign that that tells you there’s going to be a high likelihood that you’re going to set off a knee problem. So watch out for that as well. Alright, let’s get into it.

I’m going to show you the first exercise, we’re going to do a fire hydrant exercise for this exercise, you’re going to have to get down on the floor or on your bed on your knees like so.

And if you have any sort of difficulty putting pressure on your knees, had it up, get some pills under there. But something cushiony fold up some towels. Just put some cushion on your knees. And if it’s still bothering you, you’re too irritated. You should not be doing this exercise.

You’re going to get on your hands, you can be on your fists, or flat hands, it doesn’t matter. Just support yourself somehow to do this exercise, right? Here’s what I want you to do. I do a modified version from a typical fire hydrant, a typical fire hydrant you just kind of do that and hold it there.

But what I want you to do is straighten out your little It doesn’t have to be perfectly straight with your body, you’re gonna straighten out your leg and then intentionally tighten up your butt muscle right here. Squeeze up, but muscle real hard if you should be squeezing it as hard as you possibly can.

Next, turn your foot outwards. Walk up a bit more here so you can see better. So right here, squeeze the butt, turn the foot outwards, you’re still in the bud squeeze really hard. Then you’re going to move your leg outwards just a bit. And you should feel your butt turned on really good right here. Now I can go further out with my leg, but my back starts to bend. So I’m going to stop whenever my back wants to bend.

So but tight turnout, push it out right here. Hold it for 10 seconds. It’s a good starting point. 10 seconds, you can, you can do less or more depending on where you’re at. After about 10 seconds, do the other side. But tie, turn the toes out, move out here. Hold it for 10 seconds Feel the burn.

Avoid arching your back like so. In fact, if you suck in your abs a bit, it’ll probably get you a better glute contraction, I feel it for sure. And which one to do is about 10 reps on each side. So you’ll have to alternate 10 second holds on each side. That’s a good starting point you can always go up from there you can always go down to if you feel like you’re that weak but again, the focus is minimal to no hamstring work minimal to no back work.

A lot of bloodwork, you should feel your butt burning. Okay, next up, let’s do some donkey kicks. I love this one to get the pulse of the muscle. So same position, you’re going to be on all fours, just like so.

Now this time, you’re going to keep your knees bent, and you’re going to go straight up and down to the just to touching the table or the floor or the bed wherever you’re at, straight up and straight down. And this one you want to do 30 reps for. And every time you come up, you’re looking to Max, squeeze the butt cheek.

I lost count, I’m just going to keep going here until I feel my glutes toasted. Or if you feel your hamstrings starting to overpower your glutes, you need to stop. So actually I do my hamstrings starting to work my butt still working quite a bit. So I’m going to keep going. I’m still clear.

Hamstrings worked in just a bit more of a but still in charge. That’s what I want. Keep that knee bent, the more you bend it, the less hamstring of work by the way, after you do about 30 reps was going to stop there because I feel I feel that toasty right here. And you just do the other side. Let’s go up. And same thing.

I’m intentionally squeezing the butt muscle every single repetition so that you get a big glute contraction every single time. And you’re trying to not make the hamstring work or the back muscles.

Because if you don’t, if you’re not conscious about it, if you’re not intentionally squeezing that butt muscle, you’re going to start using other muscles that you’re used to using and skip using your butt muscle. I feel it right there.

So those are donkey kicks, the next one bridges. When it covered bridges. I’ve done this one before in a few videos. And I absolutely love this exercise for multiple reasons, it’s a good one to start to add weight on to. And I’ll show you what I mean here in a second. But before we do the bridges, it’s critical that you get your abs right, let me show you what I mean.

Without the abs, you’re going to use the hamstrings in the back muscles a bit more. So what you have to do is push your back down as if I’m smashing my hand right here and that turns on the ABS on the front. And that’s Can you hold that down.

Next you’re going to squeeze those butt muscles real hard. And, and then you can see this but when I squeeze my butt muscles, my knees kind of want to open. That’s okay allow that to happen. You want to avoid actually pushing your knees together when you’re doing this and you can just try it out. If you squeeze your butt muscles with your knees open, they squeeze better, they just they react better they engage or activate better.

And as soon as you bring your knees together, they don’t squeeze as good. And if you’re doing your bridges like this, it’s going to make you want to use those hands more or the back muscles more So allow your needs to be open and shoot. If you’re a more curvy person or wider hips person. You can open those knees quite a bit foot position. whatever is comfortable for you. Some people will even put their feet together.

As long as you feel your butt muscles working you are on track. It doesn’t matter how it looks as much as it matters. How you feel when you’re firing the right muscles. Okay, so that flat, squeeze above my knees opened up. That’s okay.

Now I’m lifting I’m lifting to the point where I feel just a bit of stretch here. And I’m going to back off a bit, still firing my abs here, flattening out my back and squeezing my butt muscles real hard here.

I’m okay with a little bit of stretch, but I’m not okay, if you have a lot of stretch on the front of the thighs here, because it is going to start to compress the cartilage in your knee joint, the quads right here will tighten up because they’re stretching.

And then they start to push the kneecap against the thigh bone, and they’ll compress, they’ll compress the shin bone and the thigh bone, the femur and the tibia. And that can start to set off knee problems as you continue to do this exercise, you may not feel it on the first Rep. But if you keep doing this exercise over time, you can definitely set it off. And if you’re very irritated, you’ll probably feel the first Rep. Let me just do some more reps here.

So I’m going to hold for 10 seconds, but tight right here 10 seconds. And I don’t even have to lift to feel a good glute contraction. Watch. If I just do that. without lifting, I’m not pushing up. I’m just holding my butt tight with my back flat. I feel my glutes working right here, it’s a bit more intensive I come up.

So I’m going to lift up here to get the benefit of it. And you might do 10 reps like this. just pause the video if you need to rewind if you want to do the next, you know the next few reps I have to go on here. I’m patients coming real soon here. So I have to hurry through this video just a tiny bit. still going to give you all the tips.

After about 10 seconds, you can relax you should feel these butt muscles working. Right next we’re going to do the clamshells. I love this exercise because it really isolates specifically, the gluteus medius, which is one of the key muscles that they found in the research helped out knee problems. All the glute muscles together definitely help me problem.

But if I had to pick one, I would say the gluteus medius on and if we’re splitting hairs and getting sciency medically here, the posterior half the back half of the gluteus medius is key in fixing the problems. So I’m going to show you how to fire that particular part of the muscle gonna lie on your side slit.

So you put a pillow under your head or support yourself however you want. stack your legs on top of each other, then what you’re going to do is look at your upper knee, the knee that’s above the bottom one, obviously.

So then you’re going to roll forward like so my feet are staying together. And I’m just kind of rolling forward my hips and spine so that this knee sticks out past the bottom knee. Once I’m there, I’m ready, I’m going to lift up my leg and just hold it here a bit.

And the goal is to feel the muscle back here where my back pocket is right there working. And I feel it which don’t want to feel is the muscle under your front pocket, right you’re working on the thigh starting to feel this just a bit.

So what I’m going to do to isolate back here, the butt muscles is roll a bit more and my legs are blocking me. So I’m just going to straighten out my knees slightly Eastern over again. See my knees are still bent a little more straight, though slides and roll better.

Then I’m going to turn up like so. And I’m turning my foot up, because that does make a little bit harder. But I’m going to roll more forward and who I feel it right there. And I’m trying to intentionally squeeze it as well.

But in this motion, I’m lifting and tightening up this muscle to now key thing here, you don’t want to go as wide as you can, because then you’re going to start using these muscles right away, you need to be in the best position to fire this muscle right here. It does not matter how high you lift, it matters how well you fire this muscle.

So 10 second holds 10 reps is a good starting point, you can increase to 15 or 20 seconds or do more reps to get a better contraction through here.

The goal is to tire out your buttock muscles, that’s what’s going to allow you to get stronger over time, do the other side as well. Obviously, if you’ve got a knee problem with just one side, it’s okay to just focus on that side. But eventually, you want to isolate both sides of the you evenly strengthen them.

For this next one, I’m going to just a camera angle so you can see my legs, we’re going to do an isometric squat. This one is fantastic at getting the butt muscles to work. But I saved it for last because there’s a little higher risk in increasing your knee pain on this one. So you have to pay close attention. Right? S

o watch here, I’m going to stand up you’re going to see my legs. And a key thing here is turning your feet out and turning your knees out oftentimes is called a play squat. That’s, that’s fine, if you want to call it that. I just care that your pup muscles are getting stronger whether it’s a play squad or any kind of squat. I don’t care. I care about your knees. I care about you not having surgery and having to rely on medications and injections.

So if it looks a little funny to people who gives a flip, I’d rather you not have surgery and be active and healthy and this is going to help you do that. So let me Are you going to stand with those feet turned out a bit because that sets up the butt muscles to want to fire better than if they’re more forward or in, then what you’re going to do is a little baby squat.

If this hurts your knees already, then just do an even more shallow squat, it’s okay, if you just even bend your knees just a tiny bit, that works, you’re still going to get a good glute contraction.

Once you’re there, then what you got to do with your hips, is thrust them forward, just like so. And hold it there. You’ll feel this working a tiny bit, that’s, that’s okay. But what you should think about feeling is these muscles working back here, you need to feel your butt muscles tighten up as you hold for 10 seconds here.

And if you want to go a little more deep, that’s fine, just keep everything the same, you have to turn your toes out. And then as you thrust your hips forward, you also have to push your knees out wide.

You can’t have your knees in and you can play with it. If you put your knees in, you’ll feel these muscles work more, as soon as you turn them out. And make sure your hips are forward, this shuts down. And this turns on more, you need these muscles to work on this exercise. hold that for 10 seconds, do 10 reps. And you’ll start to sweat a little bit you’ll I mean; you won’t get the biggest sweat ever.

But you’ll start to work and you’ll feel your body heating up and your glutes working pretty good. And it’s okay to do more shallow right here, you can still get a good glute contraction. And this is phenomenal. And this should not hurt your knees. Like I said, you need to go higher. Don’t squat so low if you feel like your knees are hurting.

So there you go. Those are the top five exercises that I would recommend for somebody that’s dealing with a knee problem. Now, these are all kinds of knee problems. It’s not specific to one

I’m talking about knee arthritis, ACL problems, meniscus tears, cartilage issues like patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, it then problems, this helps tons of issues because oftentimes, the root problem to all these different diagnoses that I just mentioned, is weak glute muscles, they they’re showing this in the research.

And just to reminder, if these exercises are hurting you, you’re not ready for them, you have to do something that’s a little lower level, a little less intense, you might modify these so that they’re not as intense. Or you might need to wait, you might occasionally need a brace, especially if you have a an ACL problem or some other ligament problem.

And if you’re just having trouble getting that irritation down, then you probably need to see a health care expert to help you out with your knee problem. So that you can get to the point where you can exercise to begin to solve the root problem and fix it for the long term.

And then these exercises are just kind of the beginner level of progressions that you need to work up into. So that you can maintain an elevated level of strength and keep your knee healthy for the long term.

Now oftentimes, when we take clients to these exercises, we’re hanging out on these exercises for anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month, maybe six weeks. And then we’re challenging them more by adding weights. Where are we holding for longer, we’re doing reps and we’re going for 5060 100 reps even.

And they’re getting their glute muscles stronger. Sometimes people even come back saying their butts bigger in the good way where it’s muscle, not the other thing that can get bigger. And so we are big advocates of increasing your strength.

In order to maintain your knee health, you’ve got to maintain that glute strength. So you’ve got to do some sort of maintenance exercises, once you’ve elevated your glute strength to make sure that your knee problem isn’t coming back over and over again. And we get people in here that are weight lifters, you know their power lifters crossfitters. They enjoy lifting weights.

And the question that I always asked them is how often do your glutes get tired during a workout? How often do you feel sore in your butt muscles after a workout? If the answer is rarely to never, then you’re probably missing strengthening your glutes. And although you’re probably a strong person, you can pick up lots of weight for your bodyweight and your fit.

You’ve been doing it for a while, it could be that you’ve been training into a muscle imbalance it’s led up to this knee issue that you’re dealing with. So you infer strong people they can have a relative weakness where their glutes might be stronger than somebody that barely ever works out.

But because their other muscles are so compensated to do the exercise they’ve been putting themselves through, its weak and that needs to improve. And these exercises are a great starting point for that person. Now if you’ve been doing these exercises for a while and you’re looking for the next steps, we have a program called the 28-Day Knee Health And Wellness Boost Program.

You can find more information about this in the description below. And you can get a ton of exercises a ton of other help. It’s not just good exercises, it’s a bunch of other stuff so that you can more thoroughly and comprehensively fix any problem for the long run. If you thought this video was helpful for you, if you are trying out these exercises, I want to hear about it please comment below and let us know if you got your glutes tired if they’re sore a bit in a good way.

And please if you’re hurting your knees Again, please stop, I can’t stress that enough, do not do this. If your knees are hurting doing this or something else going on, you need to address that first.

Hey, if you thought this video was helpful for you, and you’re thinking that you might need a little more help from a professional that specializes in fixing the problems for the long term, without surgery, medications and injections, and we might be the right people to help you out,

I invite you to apply for a discovery visit, all you have to do is scroll down to the bottom here and find the link that says request a discovery visit, leave us your details there and one of my staff will call you back as fast as possible so that they can get all the details about your knee issue, and see if it’s a type that we can help out effectively.

And if we can’t help you out, we’ll tell you the next steps so that you can begin to see a physical therapist, a specialist, physical therapist about your knee problem, we can do these virtually or in person. And what we’ll do is head will sit down for 20 minutes, talk to you about your issue, we want to hear all about your knee problem as well, of course, and then if you’re in person with us, we’ll check you by hand. If we’re doing it over video, then we’ll look at you moving in by the end of this 20 minute 20 minute discovery visit.

We want to form a diagnosis that we can share with you and explain thoroughly to you. We’ll take out the skeleton and the anatomy book. And we’ll let you know what the diagnosis is and what you should begin to do to help this problem and also stop doing so you don’t make this problem worse. And if you choose to become our patient, we’ll tell you about how to do that and we’ll begin to form a treatment plan so that you can solve this problem for good without surgery, injections or medications. I hope that we can be a part of your success story real soon. Have a wonderful day.