What Women Can Learn From Simone Biles About Glutes, Core and Explosive Strength
UPLIFT IRON CLUBHer Vault Starts With Speed, Not a Bigger Squat
Watch Simone Biles enter a vault and the temptation is to reduce everything to a spectacular jump. But the jump is only the visible middle of a much longer chain. She accelerates down the runway, converts horizontal movement into a precisely timed interaction with the springboard and vault table, then has to organize her body while airborne. A powerful lower body matters enormously. So do approach speed, timing, stiffness, upper-body blocking strength and an extraordinary sense of where the body is in space. Remove one link and the entire skill changes.
At the Paris Olympics in 2024, Biles won vault gold with two different vaults, including the difficult Yurchenko double pike. That performance is evidence of her exceptional technical and athletic ability, not evidence that a particular gym exercise can produce the same outcome. Her second vault required a different combination of body positions and timing. The interesting training lesson is that athletic power must be expressed in the right direction, at the right moment. Bigger muscles alone cannot solve a poorly timed movement.
That distinction matters for anyone who wants stronger, more athletic glutes. A heavy hip thrust measures the ability to apply force against a load in one position. A jump asks the hips, knees and ankles to produce force quickly, with body weight and momentum moving through a shorter window. Both can be valuable. Neither makes the other redundant. If you exclusively chase maximal loads and never practice moving quickly, you may miss part of the quality you wanted to build.
It also explains why looking at an elite gymnast's physique tells you remarkably little about her complete program. Her appearance reflects genetics, years of sport-specific practice, training volume, nutrition and selection for high-level competition. You cannot reverse-engineer a world-class routine from a television close-up of her quads or glutes. What you can borrow is a useful principle: develop strength first, then learn to express it with controlled speed.
For recreational lifters, that usually begins with ordinary exercises. A squat, split squat, hinge and calf raise cover much of the lower-body foundation. Once the basics are repeatable, a few low-amplitude jumps can teach a different skill: accelerating the body, landing with balance and recovering before the next rep. A set of three sharp, controlled jumps is often more relevant to power development than twenty exhausting, progressively slower jumps.
Keep two goals separate. Strength work asks whether you can produce enough force while maintaining position. Power work asks how quickly you can produce useful force without losing control. There is a place for both on the same training week, but they need not be maxed out in the same session. If you want the kind of athletic impression that Biles embodies, prioritize crisp movement quality over the illusion that every exercise must leave you breathless.
The sensible inspiration is not “train like Simone Biles tomorrow.” It is “make every rep accomplish something specific.” A glute workout becomes more complete when it includes an intentionally strong hinge, single-leg stability and some appropriately scaled fast movement. Your skill level determines how far that last part should go.
Strength deserves its own spotlight, whatever the scoreboard.
Glutes Matter, but the Whole Leg Has to Cooperate
It is reasonable to notice Biles' powerful legs and ask what the glutes contribute. The gluteus maximus is a major hip extensor: it helps drive the thigh backward relative to the pelvis during sprinting, rising, jumping and many loaded lifts. The gluteus medius and other smaller hip muscles help manage pelvic position and the way the femur moves during single-leg support. Those roles make glute strength relevant to athletes. They do not make the glutes a magic engine operating independently of the rest of the body.
In a vault approach or floor pass, the hamstrings, quadriceps, calf muscles, foot and ankle, tendons and trunk all contribute. The quadriceps help extend and absorb force at the knee. The ankle and calf complex affect push-off and contact stiffness. Hamstrings participate in hip extension while controlling movement around the knee, depending on the phase. Good mechanics depend on how these structures coordinate, not simply on which muscle gets the biggest pump.
That is why a complete glute-focused training plan uses more than one movement pattern. A hip thrust loads hip extension strongly near the top of the movement. A Romanian deadlift challenges the hip extensors as they lengthen under load. A squat and split squat involve both the hip and knee and demand more integrated support. Step-ups add a single-leg component that makes pelvic control visible. None is inherently the “secret” of an Olympic gymnast; together they form a practical strength menu.
For most women seeking more lower-body capability, two hard but manageable lower-body sessions per week can go further than adding random glute finishers every day. Start with one squat or split-squat variation and one hinge or thrust, then include a smaller single-leg or lateral-hip exercise as needed. Progress through full, controllable ranges rather than chasing dramatic numbers at the expense of alignment. Maintain enough food and recovery to adapt.
Here is a useful exercise-choice test:
- Need general strength? Choose a squat, step-up or split squat that you can progressively load.
- Need posterior-chain strength? Use a Romanian deadlift or controlled hip hinge.
- Want direct hip-extension volume? Add hip thrusts or bridges without abandoning the compounds.
- Lose balance on one leg? Practice supported single-leg work and gradually reduce support.
- Need lateral pelvic control? Try side steps, lateral step-downs or side planks.
Even the best exercise needs a progression rule. Choose loads that allow one or two clean repetitions in reserve for most working sets. When you can reach the top of the chosen rep range with stable technique, raise the load modestly. A stronger hip is a useful achievement; how much of that strength becomes jump height or sprint performance depends on coordination and practice.
Do not mistake a photographed athletic physique for a prescription to pursue a particular shape. Muscle attachment points, proportions and the visible silhouette differ from person to person. The better question is whether the glutes help you squat, hinge, sprint, climb, jump and stabilize with more confidence. Biles makes the result of exceptional whole-body coordination easy to see. Your own workouts should train the pieces rather than worship one muscle.
Glute work has more to offer than a camera angle.
The Core Is a Steering System, Not a Six-Pack Contest
When a gymnast flips and twists, the abdominal muscles are doing far more than creating a photogenic midsection. The trunk helps connect the force produced by the legs to the movement of the pelvis, shoulders and arms. It resists unwanted extension or rotation when a position must stay tight, yet it also allows carefully controlled changes in shape when the skill requires them. Biles' aerial control is an extreme demonstration of coordinated body positioning, not a case for doing five hundred crunches.
Think of core strength as the ability to manage your torso relative to your hips while force is moving through the body. In a squat, trunk stiffness helps keep the load in a repeatable path. During a running step, the torso must manage rotational forces created by opposite arm and leg movements. In a jump, the ribs and pelvis need to organize efficiently so force is not wasted on uncontrolled movement. Muscular endurance, timing, breathing and proprioception all matter.
Proprioception is the sense of where your body is and how it is moving. Gymnasts develop astonishing levels of it through countless coached skill repetitions. An everyday gym routine will not replicate that background, but simple balance and anti-rotation work can improve awareness of position. The useful carryover is learning to notice when a rib cage flares, a pelvis tilts or a single-leg stance becomes unstable, then making small corrections while breathing.
The word “brace” can also create confusion. Bracing does not mean holding your breath through an entire workout or squeezing your stomach as hard as possible during every movement. It means creating enough trunk tension for the task. A challenging squat may need substantial pressure and stiffness for a short rep. A slow dead bug needs lower intensity, precise position and controlled exhalation. A sprint involves rapidly alternating trunk demands rather than a permanent rigid cylinder.
Try a three-movement core circuit twice a week after your main lifts:
- Dead bug: 2 sets of 6–8 slow repetitions per side, keeping the lower back from arching dramatically.
- Side plank: 2 sets of 20–35 seconds per side, with hips stacked and steady breathing.
- Pallof press: 2 sets of 8–12 presses per side, resisting the cable or band pulling you into rotation.
Rest briefly as needed and stop the set when you lose the intended position. Advanced athletes can progress to loaded carries, controlled hanging work, longer-lever plank variations or carefully coached rotational drills. They do not need to skip directly to difficult gymnastics holds. The goal is to own a position under a challenge that matches your current ability.
Visible abs are influenced strongly by body-fat distribution and genetics; they are not a reliable scorecard for trunk function. Someone can be impressively lean yet lack the strength to control a heavy carry. Someone else can have an excellent brace without a sharply outlined six-pack. Biles' performance is a reminder that the torso is part of a high-speed system. Train it to transfer force, resist the movement you do not want and create the movement you do want.
A stable center makes strong movement possible.
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The Landing Is Half the Power Story
The loudest moment in a jump is often takeoff, but the quieter lesson happens when the feet return to the floor. Gymnasts have to reduce momentum and keep enough balance to continue or finish a skill. That requires eccentric muscle action, joint coordination and split-second decisions about body position. The same general ability matters when someone steps off a box, changes direction on a court, lands after a rebound or catches herself after a stumble.
Landing well is not simply “bend your knees.” Your ankle, knee and hip all need enough motion to share the load. Your torso should stay organized rather than pitching uncontrollably. The knees should generally follow a controllable path with the feet rather than collapsing sharply inward, but the exact shape of a safe landing depends on the task, anatomy and skill. You want an active, balanced absorption of force—not a frozen textbook pose.
At elite level, landings can involve forces, angles and techniques inappropriate for uncoached recreational training. A photograph of Biles appearing suspended above the floor is not an invitation to try a backflip, high vault or drop jump. The athletic principle scales down beautifully: start with a height and speed that let you land under control, then increase difficulty only when that remains repeatable. A low step-down can provide more useful practice than a dramatic leap off a tall box.
For a beginner, a sensible landing progression might look like this:
- Stage one: Controlled body-weight squats and step-downs, with equal weight through the foot.
- Stage two: Small calf raises and low pogo movements only if the ankles tolerate them comfortably.
- Stage three: Tiny two-foot hops, landing quietly and pausing to regain a stable stance.
- Stage four: Short broad jumps or low box jumps, emphasizing a controlled, balanced landing rather than maximum distance.
Start with two sets of three to five landings and plenty of rest. If your feet slap loudly, your knees wobble markedly or you must take several recovery steps, lower the demand. Landing skill is not improved by pretending sloppy repetitions are somehow harder-core. It improves through repetitions that your nervous system can organize correctly.
Women sometimes receive simplistic warnings that their knees are inherently fragile or that jumping is inherently dangerous. Neither is useful coaching. People vary in joint history, training background, tendon capacity and landing strategy. Appropriately scaled strength and technique work can improve movement capacity; a person with prior knee or ankle injury may need an individualized progression from a qualified clinician or coach. Training should increase options, not increase fear.
The best way to honor the movement quality seen in gymnastics is to treat deceleration as a skill in its own right. A powerful glute contraction begins a jump, but the entire chain must accept the landing. Build hips and legs that can both push and absorb force. That is an athletic benefit worth pursuing even if you never step onto a balance beam.
Own the landing, not only the takeoff.
Jump Training: Borrow the Principle, Not the Olympic Skill
Plyometrics is a broad label for exercises that use a quick stretch-and-shortening action to produce force, such as certain jumps, hops and bounds. When programmed appropriately, this kind of training can help improve jump performance and aspects of movement efficiency. It does not automatically make someone a faster sprinter, better gymnast or stronger squatter. Results depend on the exercises, training dose, supervision and what the person was capable of beforehand.
The research on plyometrics in female athletes is encouraging for jump-related outcomes, but the details matter. Some studies are small, protocols differ and a gain in vertical-jump height is not the same as an increase in maximal leg strength. Changes in landing mechanics can also be specific to the drills practiced. A recreational lifter should take the broad lesson—quality jump exposure may complement resistance training—without importing an elite gymnast's workload or expecting every benefit to transfer universally.
For someone new to power training, the least impressive-looking option may be the smartest. Perform three sets of three low, smooth vertical jumps after a general warm-up and before fatiguing strength sets. Rest 45–90 seconds, or longer when needed, so the next jump is just as sharp. Land under control, reset completely and stop if the height drops or landings deteriorate. A low box jump can be useful because it allows a small landing impact when stepped down, but chasing the tallest possible box mostly tests how far you can tuck the knees.
How much is enough? In a general strength program, a small number of high-quality contacts once or twice a week is a sensible introduction. More is not automatically better. Sprinters, dancers and people doing high-volume court sports may already accumulate plenty of jumping elsewhere. A person with a recent injury, pain, pregnancy-related considerations or difficulty managing impact should choose a lower-impact substitute and seek appropriate professional guidance where needed.
Pairing resistance training with explosive movement can be useful, but sequence makes a difference. A simple week might put a handful of jumps first, followed by split squats, a hinge and core work. That keeps jumping crisp instead of turning it into a punishment at the end of an exhausting leg day. Alternative power exposures include a light medicine-ball throw, a fast but controlled unloaded squat or a short uphill acceleration, depending on goals and access.
Three rules keep the session honest:
- Earn the exercise: You should already be able to squat, hinge, step down and balance comfortably before increasing impact or complexity.
- Keep speed meaningful: Explosive repetitions end when speed and precision disappear, not when you hit an arbitrary burn target.
- Progress one demand at a time: Add a few contacts, a little height or a slightly harder drill—not all three in the same week.
Biles has spent years acquiring sport-specific skills with expert coaching. Her double pike is not the exercise. The transferable idea is that athletic training should include both the capacity to generate force and the skill to use it precisely. If your jump training looks almost boring because each landing is controlled and each rep is intentional, you are probably doing something useful.
Good power training begins with good judgment.
A Two-Day Glute, Core and Power Plan You Can Actually Repeat
Here is where the lessons become useful outside the Olympic arena. This is a general gym plan inspired by the demands of power, stability and landing control. It is not Simone Biles' personal training program, and it does not claim to create her physique or skills. The goal is to help a reasonably healthy woman with basic lifting experience train a stronger lower body, a more dependable trunk and a small amount of explosive movement without needing a gymnastics facility.
Place the two sessions two or three days apart. Begin each with five to eight minutes of easy movement, dynamic hip and ankle mobility, and rehearsal sets of the first exercise. Choose loads you can control and leave roughly one to three clean reps in reserve for major strength work. Most sets should feel challenging without becoming a maximal test. Anyone returning from injury or new to jumping can omit the jumps initially and focus on strength and controlled balance.
Day A: Hip extension and vertical power
- Low vertical jumps: 3 sets × 3 reps, full reset between landings; or fast calf raises if jumping is unsuitable.
- Goblet or front squat: 3 × 6–8, controlled descent and stable trunk.
- Romanian deadlift: 3 × 8–10, hips moving back while the back stays organized.
- Step-up: 2 × 8 per leg, choose a box low enough to avoid pushing off heavily with the trailing foot.
- Dead bug: 2 × 8 per side, slow enough to maintain a quiet torso.
- Side plank: 2 × 25–35 seconds per side, breathing steadily.
Day B: Single-leg stability, deceleration and trunk control
- Low step-down to a balanced stop: 3 × 4 each side, pausing after every rep; progress to tiny hops only after consistently smooth landings.
- Reverse lunge or split squat: 3 × 8 per leg, steady knee and pelvis alignment.
- Hip thrust: 3 × 8–12, controlled at the top without overextending the lower back.
- Single-leg Romanian deadlift with support: 2 × 8 per leg, deliberately resisting pelvic rotation.
- Pallof press: 2 × 10 per side, short pause as arms extend.
- Farmer carry: 3 × 20–30 metres, upright posture and steady breathing.
Rest about two minutes between major strength sets, less for accessories if positions remain stable. For power drills, prioritize full recovery and crisp intent rather than rushing to hit a heart-rate target. Your first week is a baseline, not an audition. If the same exercises and rep ranges remain clean over successive sessions, add a small increment to the loads. Increase difficulty of jumping or balancing only after you demonstrate repeatable control.
Over four weeks, a useful progression looks like this. Week one: learn the exercises and record weights and reps. Week two: add a rep to a few sets where technique is consistent. Week three: add a modest load on an exercise that has reached the top of its range; keep the jump dose unchanged. Week four: consolidate with slightly fewer hard sets if fatigue has accumulated, and compare movement quality with the baseline. There is no prize for escalating everything at once.
Measure more than appearance. Write down your split-squat load, the steadiness of your step-down, how evenly you can hold a side plank and whether jumps still look clean at the end of a set. These are real, observable improvements. If you want visible muscle growth as well, sufficient protein, energy intake, sleep and progressive resistance training remain important. The best plan is the one you can recover from and keep progressing.
The headline lesson from Biles is not that women must train as gymnasts to get strong. It is that strength, speed, trunk control and movement precision reinforce one another. You can admire the astonishing athletic ceiling of an Olympic champion while building a realistic foundation at your own level. Stronger glutes are useful. A core that stays organized is useful. The ability to produce force quickly and land with control is useful. Put those qualities together patiently, and you train for more than a mirror.
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