When most people think of core or pelvic floor symptoms — like leaking, heaviness, or persistent low back pain — they immediately focus on the abs or pelvic floor muscles themselves. It makes sense: those are the areas where the symptoms are felt. But here’s the often-overlooked truth: your glutes are just as important for building a resilient system.

Your glutes aren’t only about aesthetics; they play a fundamental role in stability. They anchor the pelvis, direct how force is absorbed and transferred through the hips, and provide a strong base of support for the spine, abdominal wall, and pelvic floor. In other words, they set the stage for how your entire core system functions.

When the glutes are weak or underactive, other muscles step in to compensate. Often, that means the pelvic floor and abdominal wall tighten or grip in ways they’re not designed to, which increases strain and disrupts pressure management. Over time, this can show up as leaking with exercise, heaviness or dragging sensations, hip and low back tightness, or even poor core coordination.

Understanding this connection changes the conversation around postpartum recovery and long term strength. Instead of zooming in only on the pelvic floor or abs, we zoom out to look at the bigger system and the glutes are right at the center of it.

The Role of the Glutes

Your glutes — made up of the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus — are among the most powerful and essential muscles in the body. While they often get attention for their size or shape, their real importance lies in how they keep your entire system moving well and supported. Each part of the glute complex plays a slightly different role:

• Gluteus Maximus: The largest muscle, primarily responsible for hip extension (think standing up from a squat, pushing off in a sprint, or climbing stairs). It also helps with external rotation and overall power production.
• Gluteus Medius: Located on the side of the hip, this muscle stabilizes the pelvis during single leg movements like walking, running, or lunging. Without it, the pelvis tips or drops, putting more strain on the core and pelvic floor.
• Gluteus Minimus: The smallest and deepest glute muscle, working closely with the medius to control internal rotation and side to side hip stability.

Together, these muscles:

• Stabilize the pelvis during every movement. From simply standing upright to running or lifting heavy.
• Control hip mechanics, balancing internal and external rotation so the legs move efficiently and the pelvis stays supported.
• Generate force and absorb impact, especially in athletic or higher-load movements like jumping, sprinting, or heavy lifting.

When your glutes are strong and firing well, your pelvis stays neutral, your hips share the load evenly, and the rest of your system — the core and pelvic floor — can focus on their primary roles: managing pressure, providing support, and coordinating breath with movement.

But when glutes are underdeveloped or fatigued, the story changes. The body shifts responsibility to nearby muscles, often overloading the pelvic floor, abs, and even the lower back. This is where symptoms often begin.

How Glute Weakness Affects the Core and Pelvic Floor

Your body is designed as an interconnected system — when one muscle group isn’t doing its job, another steps in to help. This is especially true with the glutes, core, and pelvic floor. If the glutes can’t stabilize effectively, the rest of the system goes into “compensation mode,” and that’s where symptoms start to show up.

What happens when the glutes are weak?

• Abs and pelvic floor gripping: Instead of the glutes holding the pelvis steady, the abs and pelvic floor tighten down to create stability. This gripping may feel like tension across your stomach, bearing down into your pelvic floor, or difficulty relaxing those muscles fully.
• Increased downward pressure: During movements like lifting, running, or even standing upright for long periods, weak glutes fail to manage hip and pelvic alignment. The result is extra pressure directed downward into the pelvic floor, which can contribute to leaking or heaviness.
• Low back and hip flexors overworking: When the glutes don’t extend and stabilize the hips, the lower back muscles and hip flexors try to take over. This creates stiffness, pinching, or aching in those areas and often leaves the glutes even less active.

The symptom cycle

These compensations often create a cycle: the pelvic floor and abs become tight or overworked, the hips and back feel strained, and the glutes remain underused. Over time, this shows up as:

• Leaking with exercise, coughing, or sneezing
• A sense of heaviness or dragging in the pelvic floor
• Persistent hip tightness that stretching alone doesn’t fix
• Ongoing low back discomfort, especially with standing or lifting

Why strengthening matters

By strengthening the glutes, you restore their role as the primary stabilizers of the pelvis. This frees up the abs and pelvic floor to do their real jobs—managing pressure, supporting posture, and coordinating with breath. The whole system (glutes, core, pelvic floor, and hips) works in synergy, making you more resilient, more efficient in movement, and less likely to experience recurring symptoms.

Why This Matters Postpartum

Pregnancy and postpartum bring unique physical changes that make the glutes especially vulnerable to weakness. While these changes are completely normal, they shift the way your body recruits and uses muscles — often leaving the glutes undertrained at a time when your pelvis and core need them most.

Why glute strength declines

• Pelvic alignment shifts: As your belly grows, your pelvis often tips forward into an anterior tilt or swayback posture. This positioning lengthens and weakens the glutes, while hip flexors and low back muscles tighten and take on more work.
• Reduced stability training: Many pregnant women decrease higher intensity or unilateral strength training for comfort. While smart, this often reduces the very challenges (single leg work, heavier loads, power) that keep the glutes strong and responsive.
• Postpartum recovery time: After birth, it’s common to step away from structured strength training to allow healing and adjust to new routines. Weeks or months of inactivity can cause glutes to weaken.
• Daily caregiving demands: Rocking, feeding, and carrying a baby are repetitive tasks that rely heavily on the arms, back, and hip flexors. These movements rarely challenge the glutes in meaningful ways, leaving them deconditioned while other muscle groups grow tighter and more fatigued.

Why it matters for your core and pelvic floor

Without intentional rebuilding, glute weakness doesn’t just affect how strong your hips feel — it has a ripple effect on your entire system. The pelvic floor and abs may grip to provide missing stability, increasing pressure and strain.

The long-term impact

The truth is, these patterns don’t always resolve on their own. Many women notice glute weakness and its effects not only in the early postpartum months, but also years later if they never rebuild that foundation. The good news? With targeted training, the glutes can be strengthened again — supporting the pelvis, easing the load on the core and pelvic floor, and creating resilience for lifting, running, and all the demands of motherhood.

8 Exercises to Rebuild Glute Strength and Pelvic Stability

1. Single-Leg Hip Thrust with 3-Second Eccentric

Benefits: Builds glute strength in the shortened range while layering in eccentric control, which is often lost postpartum. The slow lowering phase teaches your pelvis to stay steady under load and prevents your low back from arching to “help.” This is one of the best ways to restore hip extension strength and pelvic stability.

---

2. Skater Squat

Benefits: Trains single-leg glute and quad strength in a deep, lengthened position. This challenges balance and coordination, mimicking real-life movements like getting up from the floor or controlling stairs. By loading the glutes in length, it builds resilience that carries over into running, lunging, and deceleration tasks.

---

3. Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift

Benefits: Strengthens the glutes and hamstrings in the hip-hinge pattern, which is essential for lifting, bending, and running mechanics. Because it’s performed on one leg, it also retrains pelvic stability and prevents compensations like hip shift or overreliance on the lower back.

---

4. Slider Lateral Lunge

Benefits: Challenges the glutes and adductors in the frontal plane (side-to-side), an often-missed direction in postpartum rehab. Strength in this plane improves hip control, reduces pelvic “wobble” in walking or running, and balances out the forward-and-back dominance of squats and deadlifts.

---

5. Curtsy Step Down

Benefits: Strengthens glute medius and adductors while teaching the pelvis to control rotational forces. This exercise specifically trains against hip drop and pelvic tilt, both common postpartum compensations that contribute to core and pelvic floor strain.

---

6. Side-Lying Hip Abduction

Benefits: Isolates the glute medius, a small but critical stabilizer for the pelvis. Stronger glute medius reduces hip drop during walking or running and helps offload unnecessary gripping from the pelvic floor and lower back.

---

7. Adductor Side Plank with Hip Lift

Benefits: Integrates glute medius and adductor strength, building the lateral stability that holds the pelvis in a neutral position. This exercise directly supports pelvic floor function by reducing side-to-side collapse and encouraging balanced loading across the hips.

---

Key Takeaway

Your glutes don’t work in isolation — they are the foundation that keeps your pelvis, core, and pelvic floor functioning as a team. Postpartum, when glutes are often weakened from pregnancy and early recovery, the rest of the system is forced to pick up the slack. That’s when symptoms like leaking, heaviness, hip tightness, or back pain begin to surface.

By intentionally rebuilding glute strength — in all planes of motion, across different ranges, and with single leg control — you restore balance to the system. Strong glutes improve pressure management, stabilize the pelvis, and give your core and pelvic floor the support they need to do their jobs effectively.

👉 Ready to rebuild from the ground up? Explore my Return to Strength and Core Rebuild programs inside the Lift with Emily App to strengthen your glutes, restore core-pelvic function, and feel confident in your movement again.