Why They’re Connected and How to Rebuild Strength

Tight glutes and a tense pelvic floor often show up together — especially in the postpartum season. These muscle groups don’t work in isolation; they’re designed to share the job of stabilizing the pelvis and responding to changes in pressure, load, and movement. Because they’re so closely linked, when one holds tension, the other often follows.

How does this show up? Postpartum, the nervous system is highly protective. Changes in pelvic stability, shifts in breathing patterns, or even the stress of daily life can cause the glutes and pelvic floor to stay “switched on” as a way to create stability. The result isn’t true strength — it’s constant tension.

Common signs you might notice include:

• Habitually clenching or “gripping” your glutes, even at rest
• A sense of heaviness, tightness, or burning in the pelvic floor
• Difficulty fully relaxing during breath work or stretching
• Low back or hip discomfort tied to overactive stabilizers
• Feeling strong in some movements but still “stuck” in your core and pelvis

It’s easy to assume that more stretching will solve the problem, but tension isn’t just about short muscles. It’s about coordination. When the glutes and pelvic floor can move, lengthen, and strengthen in sync, the system works more efficiently, tension eases, and function is restored.

That’s why this sequence moves in four phases:

1. Restore Mobility & Awareness → Create space in the hips and pelvis so the glutes and pelvic floor can move instead of grip.
2. Train Control Without Gripping → Teach the pelvis to stabilize with adductors, ribs, and core — not just glute tension.
3. Down-Train Overactive Strategies → Reduce protective holding patterns with breath and rib mobility so muscles can respond instead of stay “on.”
4. Load Glutes Intentionally → Build glute strength through full range and rotation, supporting pelvic floor function without tension.

When you work through these steps, you’re not just loosening tight muscles — you’re retraining the glutes and pelvic floor to coordinate as part of a responsive, resilient system.

Restore Mobility & Awareness

After pregnancy and postpartum, many women lose the ability to fully access hip and pelvic mobility. The body often compensates with clenching strategies — holding the glutes and pelvic floor tight for stability. Restoring mobility is the first step toward breaking this cycle.

Mobility drills open up the hips, teach the pelvis to move with the ribcage and diaphragm, and create the space for the pelvic floor to lengthen and relax. Without this foundation, strength work often reinforces the tension patterns you’re trying to unwind.

Exercises:

Hip CARS
Controlled Articular Rotations (CARS) teach you how to move your hip joint through its full range of motion without compensating through the pelvis or low back. By exploring flexion, extension, abduction, and rotation under control, you improve hip capsule mobility and nervous system awareness. For postpartum bodies, this helps reduce gripping strategies — instead of clenching the glutes to stabilize, the hip learns how to move fluidly.

Deep Squat
A deep squat restores pelvic mobility and encourages the pelvic floor to lengthen with breath. Sitting low into the hips allows the pelvic diaphragm to descend and expand, which helps reduce chronic tension. When paired with slow breathing, the deep squat can be a powerful way to reconnect glutes, pelvic floor, and diaphragm — moving them together instead of holding them stiff.

Train Control Without Gripping

Mobility alone isn’t enough — you need to be able to control the pelvis and hips through that new range. Postpartum, many women rely on gripping strategies to create stability. The goal here is to retrain pelvic control without defaulting to clenching the glutes or holding tension in the pelvic floor.

One effective way to do this is through hip shifting. Shifting the pelvis side-to-side helps create space in the back of the hip joint, encouraging the glutes to lengthen and the pelvic floor to adapt. This movement not only opens new ranges but also teaches the system how to stabilize without bracing.

Control-based drills like these help you stack ribs over pelvis, integrate adductor strength, and move smoothly through the hips — laying the groundwork for efficient, tension-free strength.

Exercises:

Quadruped Hip Shift off Block
In this drill, the block provides feedback for pelvic alignment as you shift your hips side to side. The adductors (inner thighs) engage while the glutes and core coordinate, helping you stack ribs over pelvis without clenching. The real benefit, though, is how the shift creates space in the back of the hip joint, allowing the femur to glide deeper into the socket. More space in the backside means better control through hip internal rotation, less reliance on gripping, and the ability to release tension that often builds in the low back and glutes postpartum.

Side Lying Adductor Glides
This exercise targets the frontal plane — a movement pattern often under-trained postpartum. Lying on your side, the bottom leg presses into the floor for stability while the top leg glides, teaching your pelvis to shift and your hip to move in isolation without the low back or glutes taking over. The adductors, glutes, and core all work together to create controlled lateral movement, which builds pelvic stability and pelvic floor balance. Instead of gripping the glutes, you’re training smoother, more intentional hip control across the muscles that share the load.

Down-Train Overactive Strategies

When the nervous system is holding on for protection, it’s difficult to access true strength. Postpartum, it’s common for the glutes and pelvic floor to stay “switched on” as a response to instability, discomfort, or stress. The result is constant tension rather than coordinated support.

Down-training drills use breath, rib mobility, and adductor engagement to ease this holding pattern. By shifting pressure away from overactive strategies, they create balance between the glutes, adductors, and pelvic floor — making space for strength that feels responsive instead of rigid.

Exercises:

Quadruped Rockback with IR Block Squeeze
Rocking back into the hips while lightly squeezing a block between the knees biases internal rotation and adductor activation. This pattern helps relax glute clenching, because the glutes can’t dominate while the adductors are engaged. At the same time, the pelvic floor is encouraged to lengthen as the hips move into flexion. It’s a gentle but effective way to shift the nervous system out of “guard” mode. Key here: inhale as you sit back into the glutes, avoiding a ‘butt wink’ at the bottom of the rep.

Side Lying Adductor Squeeze with Forward Reach
Here, you’re pairing an adductor squeeze with a reach through the upper body. This creates length in the back ribs, promotes posterior expansion with breath, and gives the pelvic floor space to release. The adductor engagement stabilizes the pelvis without forcing the glutes to overwork. Together, the breath and squeeze help retrain the system to find stability through coordination.

Load Glutes Intentionally

Once mobility is restored and tension has eased, the next step is to strengthen the glutes — but with intention. Rather than defaulting to clenching, the goal is to train the glutes to move and load through their full range. This builds strength that supports pelvic floor function and integrates with the rest of your system.

By layering in rotation and progressive loading, these exercises develop glute power and stability for running, lifting, and daily life — all while keeping the pelvic floor coordinated instead of tense.

Exercise:

Side Lying Clam to Reverse Clam (banded)
This progression strengthens the glute med and rotators by training both external and internal rotation against resistance. Instead of holding a static clench, the glutes are loaded dynamically through their range. This not only builds strength but also teaches the muscles to contract and release when needed. For the pelvic floor, this translates into better timing and support without the constant background tension.

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Final Thoughts

Tight glutes and a tense pelvic floor aren’t just isolated problems — they’re signals that your system is leaning on tension instead of true coordination.

By restoring mobility, improving control, easing overactive patterns, and then building strength with intention, you can create a pelvic system that feels balanced, responsive, and strong in every part of daily life.

Ready to Rebuild from the Inside Out?

If you’re looking for a step-by-step plan that takes you from recovery to strength and power, my Return to Strength and Return to Barbell programs inside the Lift with Emily App are designed for exactly this.

Join today and start building strength that lasts — from the inside out.