The Monster Walk Exercise Targets Your Entire Lower Body With Just a Mini Band

Monster walks strengthen important stabilizing muscles in your glutes and hips. If you're looking to run with greater ease, improve your balance or get stronger in the weight room, monster walks make a great addition to your workout routine.

• ‌What is the monster walk exercise?‌ The monster walk is an exercise where you walk forward and backward with a resistance band around your legs (typically your thighs).
• ‌Monster walk muscles worked:‌ Monster walks primarily target your gluteus medius and other hip abductor muscles on the sides of your hips. Your gluteus maximus, quadriceps, hamstrings and calf muscles are also targeted to a lesser extent.
• ‌Are monster walks effective?‌ Monster walks help you build strength in your hips and glutes, which can translate to better balance, increased strength and improved athletic performance.
• ‌Why are they called monster walks?‌ Imagine a giant monster trying to walk. That's sort of what you'll look like when you do this exercise.
• ‌Who can do monster walks?‌ Monster walks are suitable for nearly all trainees because they are relatively simple and easy to scale.

Your gluteus medius is one of the most important muscles for your walking/running gait because it stabilizes your pelvis and helps control the position of your knees. Over time, weak glute med muscles can contribute to the development of overuse injuries — especially if you're a runner racking up many miles on hard pavement.

How do you strengthen your gluteus medius? Monster walks are a great place to start. Including them in your workouts can improve your walking and running mechanics so you can cover more miles with less effort. Monster walks are especially helpful if you struggle with knee pain while running.

Strong hips and feet are essential for balance. This is especially important for older adults, who are at a greater risk of injuries from falls.

Monster walks are a great way to build balance. As an added bonus, the monster walk is more accessible than other glute exercises because you don't need to get up and down off the floor.

One of the most common mistake with lower-body exercises (like squats) is knee valgus, which is when your knees collapse in toward the middle of your body. Some degree of valgus is not a big deal (and might be inevitable,) but your knees will probably feel better if you can keep them more in line with your toes.

Knee valgus is often a result of — you guessed it — a weak glute med. When you do monster walks to strengthen your glutes and hips, you can reduce knee valgus and build stronger squats, split squats and lunges.

Monster walks are an ideal exercise for people who train at home, outside or on the road because they only require a single mini resistance band. Plus, you can easily control the challenge of the exercise, by choosing lighter and heavier resistance bands.

It's very important to keep your knees in line with your toes when performing monster walks. If you allow your knees to cave inside your toes toward the middle of your body, you miss out on all the great glute strengthening benefits of this exercise.

Actively drive your knees out into the band with each step. Even if the band is around your feet, you should still strive to keep your knees in line with your toes.

It's okay to have your toes point out slightly out when performing monster walks, but too much can reduce the effectiveness of the exercise. Try to keep your toes pointed straight ahead of you as much as possible.

Keep constant tension on the band throughout your entire monster walk set to maximize glute gains. If you take steps that are too small, or bring your feet all the way back together in between steps, the tension could go slack, which is a common resistance band mistake. Make sure your steps are wide enough that you never lose band tension.

Some trainees lean their body from side to side while performing monster walks. Others may notice a hip hike or drop, where one side of their pelvis tilts up or down. Both of these are compensations for a lack of hip or core strength.

The goal is to keep your body position level and resist any side-to-side movement as you walk. Watch yourself in a mirror, film your sets or recruit a buddy to keep an eye on your body position.