Strengthen your thighs : Exercise for the gluteus medius muscle

Paul StaerkerLower BodyLeave a Comment

Strengthen your thighs : Exercise for the gluteus medius muscle

This week we are demonstrating an exercise to help you strengthen your thighs. Or, in particular, your gluteus medius muscle.

Strengthen your thighs with a simple exercise at home

Occupational Therapist Kate Thomas at Burswood Health clinic in Burswood, East Perth, and Jess, are ready to show you the exercise in full detail.


How we strengthen your thighs without spending hours at the gym

Kate: Today I'm gonna show you a simple but effective exercise to strengthen your gluteus medius muscle. Your Gluteus Medius muscle is located just around the hip, on the side here. And it's a main stabiliser when you walk, run and jump.
So it's really important to get it nice and strong.Now you may be going to the gym and think you're doing a 100 squats, and strengthening it properly. But you may not actually be activating it at all. So let's go back to basics first.

strengthen your thighs

So what you have to do is lie on your side with your legs at a 45 degree angle. Now the aim of the exercise is to lift the top leg nice and slowly in a nice slow controlled manner. So if we can just do that, Jess...Thank you. So just up and down. Nice and slowly. Thank you. Now sometimes when you first begin your knees might start to move forward a little bit which means you're not actually activating your gluteus medius muscle properly. So what we'll do is start with using this stick and we'll just pop it over at the front here just in front of the thighs. You can hold it yourself, but it's probably better if you start with someone else doing it for you.
So the aim is just to lift your leg up and down, raising it nice and slightly. Nice and controlled. Now you don't want to let your leg just fall down, it needs to be controlled at all times.
Just to keep that muscle nice and engaged. Now you should feel it burn around that gluteus medius area after about 8 to 10 reps. I'd recommend to start off with 8 to 10 reps, so on each side, through to 3 times a day and then progress from there. It's really important just to get that muscle activated. Otherwise as I said yo could be doing a 100 squads and not really getting anywhere. So nice, slow, controlled movements at first, 8 to 10 reps each side and then progress from there.

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Our practice is located in Burswood (Eastern Perth surburbs), a 1 minute drive from the Town of Victoria Park or East-Perth.

  Visit our Perth practice:
21 Harvey Street
Burswood, WA 6100, Perth

Call us: (08) 9361 2628

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