Understand Your Glute Muscles Better

In our first Mobilisers and Stabilisers blog, we introduced the idea that your body relies on two muscle systems: the big power producers and the deeper control muscles.
Now we’re taking a closer look at how this applies specifically to the glutes, and why tightness, weakness and recurring discomfort often come down to an imbalance between these two groups.

The Glutes: Power vs Control

Your glutes aren’t just one muscle. They’re a team.

• Glute maximus is the big, powerful muscle most people think of. This is your key mobiliser, the muscle that drives you forward when you run, helps you lift heavy weights and generates explosive movement.
• Glute medius and glute minimus, along with some deeper fibres of glute max, provide stability. They guide rotation, keep your hip centred, and help control your knee alignment when you walk, run or land.

Most people train glute max regularly, squats, lunges, deadlifts, gym work.
But the stabilising glutes often get ignored.

And that’s where problems begin.

When Stability Goes Missing:

One of the biggest disruptors of glute stability is simply how we spend our day.

Long periods of sitting,  particularly in a slouched or crossed-leg position, place the deeper glute muscles in a lengthened, inefficient state. Add in any history of pain or injury, and those stabilisers switch off even more.

When this happens, you may notice:

• your knee drifting inward on single-leg tasks
• difficulty balancing
• a “clunky” or weak feeling around the hip
• your pelvis dropping when you walk or run

The stabilisers aren’t doing their job well enough, so the big glute muscles try to help out.

The Real Reason Your Glutes Feel Tight:

When mobilisers step in to compensate for weak stabilisers, they become overworked and tense.
This is one of the most common reasons people feel:

• tight glutes day after day
• a constant urge to stretch or foam roll
• tightness that returns quickly after stretching
• stiffness around the hip or lower back

It’s not usually a flexibility issue, it’s a control issue.

Your body is asking for better stability, not more stretching.

How Can You Fix This?

Most people focus on strengthening glute max but on its own, it won’t fix control issues or recurring tightness.

To restore balance, we need to reactivate and retrain the stabilising glutes.
This means working on:

• controlled single-leg movements
• knee and hip alignment tasks
• bridge variations
• slow, steady rotation and balance exercises

These smaller, lower-threshold exercises often look simple, but they’re powerful. They wake up the stabilisers, restore alignment, and let the bigger muscles relax and return to their normal job.

Watch Paul explain in further detail the difference and ho to build your mobilisers and stabilisers in your glute.