It may be hard to believe, but your hips can affect all your lower extremities, including all of the joints that make up your legs.  Your hips control how you walk, run, step up, and step down.  It all starts from your hips!  So it’s no wonder that dysfunctional hips can be caused by a weakness in the muscles that support and stabilize them.  The muscles in question here are your glutes.  Yes, that’s right your “derriere” not only makes your pants look good, but it also functions to keep your hips working optimally.  Weak glute muscles can alter your gait pattern and cause a dysfunction in your hips which causes a chain reaction down your legs, putting undue stress on your knees and ankles.

This is why it’s important to keep your glutes strong.  Your glutes are made of three muscles each with specific actions and functions, but they all support each other.  The glute maximus is the largest and strongest muscle out of all them, but it’s functions can’t be maximized without the assistance from the other two - glute medius and glute minimus.  It’s really a team effort.  If you want your glutes to optimally function you need all three to be working in unison.  And this means not neglecting to train and strengthen the gluteus medius and minimus. Even though they are smaller supporting muscles and only play a minor role in the aesthetics of your backside, they play a key role in stabilizing your hips.

The one exercise that effectively strengthens the glute medius / minimus is the one legged squat.  You don’t need any weights, just your own body weight and you can do it anywhere.  Check out the video and see how to do the exercise properly and how you can progress into performing a full one legged squat (aka. the pistol squat).

‍How low can you go?  Post your comments below.

You can easily incorporate this exercise into any of your workouts.  Try doing 10-12 reps per leg for 2-3 sets and repeat 3 times a week.  It’s simple (I didn’t say “easy”), effective, and will strengthen and stabilize your hips so you can run, workout, and perform all other activities free of those yellow and white pills.