Strong Feet = Strong Cheeks 🍑

If you’ve ever tried to “activate your glutes” and felt… nothing—your feet might be the missing link. The foot isn’t just a passive platform. It’s a living “core” of intrinsic and extrinsic muscles that stabilize the arch, inform your nervous system where you are in space, and set up efficient mechanics all the way up to your glutes and hips. When the foot is weak or passive, the hip must compensate; when the foot is strong and active, the glutes can do their job.

The Foot–Hip Connection

Think of your foot like the tripod base of a camera. If the base is wobbly, you’ll “fix” the frame by muscling the tripod legs—hello, tight hips and cranky knees. But firm up the base, and everything above organizes with less effort.

Biomechanically, this happens in a few ways:

• Arch stability → cleaner knee/hip alignment. Intrinsic foot muscles help control pronation and support the medial arch. Better arch control reduces knee valgus and improves limb alignment during tasks like squatting, landing, and running—conditions under which the gluteus medius and maximus are major stabilizers

• Foot “core” signals your brain. Intrinsic muscles fire early in stance to stiffen the foot for propulsion and to improve torque transfer through the chain, making it easier for the hip to produce force.

• Toe strength steadies you. Strong toe flexors improve balance and gait characteristics—foundational qualities for hip loading, especially as intensity rises.

What the Research Says

Researchers have shown that foot-strengthening drills (like the short-foot exercise) light up your glute max and med—aka your booty’s power duo. In people with flat feet, these drills even reduced knee collapse and helped their hips do the heavy lifting. Translation? Toe power = peach power.

And when scientists trained the small muscles in the feet, they found people landed better from jumps (read: fewer wobbly knees, more glute action). Basically, the nerds proved what your butt already knows—happy feet make juicy cheeks.

• Combining the short-foot exercise (lifting the arch without curling the toes) with lower-limb drills has been shown to activate the gluteus maximus and medius.

• Short-foot work plus hip abduction reduces navicular drop and postural sway in people with flat feet...in other words, a more stable base for hip power.

• Intrinsic foot strengthening even alters knee mechanics during jump landings in pronated feet, showing ground-up influence on hip strategy.

• Reviews introduce the “foot core system,” establishing the foot as a dynamic stabilizer, not just a passive structure.

Where ONDAY Fits In 

All this science points to one conclusion: you need to strengthen your feet to unlock your glutes. But here’s the catch, traditional shoes often do the opposite. Narrow toe boxes squeeze the toes together, collapsing the natural tripod and muting intrinsic muscle activity.

That’s where ONDAY shoes come in:

• Built-in toe spacers. Unlike separate spacers that slip, ONDAY anchors them to the insole. This gently restores toe splay with every step, training your foot into its optimal, glute-friendly alignment.

• Roomy, foot-shaped design. Your toes can spread, flex, and grip—building strength naturally instead of being held in a cast-like shoe.

• Active tripod support. By encouraging tripod contact (big toe–little toe–heel), ONDAY helps the arch do its job, reducing knee valgus and improving hip recruitment during walking, squats, and daily movement.

In short: ONDAY makes the research practical. You don’t need to think about drills all day; your shoes do the baseline work of keeping toes splayed, arches lifted, and the glutes primed.

How to Train Feet + Glutes Together

You’ll still benefit from specific foot-core and hip drills, but ONDAY shoes make them more effective by keeping your foundation aligned.

• Short-Foot Holds in ONDAYs = easier arch lift because your toes are already spaced.

• Squats, lunges, bridges = stronger glute recruitment when the foot isn’t collapsing inward.

• Walking in ONDAYs = passive daily training, reinforcing what the lab studies show.

The Takeaway

Your feet and glutes aren’t separate systems, they’re linked in one chain. Science shows that when your toes are strong and your arches stable, your hips and glutes can produce more power, more safely.

ONDAY shoes with built-in toe spacers are designed to hardwire that connection. Every step becomes a rep for stronger feet, better hip alignment, and glutes that finally fire the way they should.