if nothing else, having mega sore glutes is cool because it makes you conciously aware of their activation all the way through the day, from getting out of bed to hitting the squat rack...and glute activation is always welcome.
like when i have sore VMOs, my knee's always feel better
Reiterating this for the 100th time - the dumbbell BBS I found out to be the BEST glute-soreness-giving exercise in existence, to me. Absolutely tremendous glute soreness. Not sure why, but it is like that.
Have you found the glute soreness to be productive though? As in does it translate into gains either in strength or muscle? Or is it just a pain in the ass (pun intended).
I don't think there is necessarily a direct benefit to any muscle being sore and you can definitely make gains in size and strength without soreness...
However, soreness indicates activation - and as we know DOMS is much easier to trigger in a muscle that hasn't been stretched under tension for awhile (think of the soreness you get after a long layoff or the first time you lift). So if you are doing squats frequently for years and suddenly you move your foot placement or depth and you experience new soreness that's an indicator that despite doing this compound lift for years you were to some degree inactive in that muscle...
It's kind of shocking to me that two people can do the same compound movements and have completely different muscle activation patterns. For those of us that have recovered from injury this is often a problem. Additionally, you are going to have a personal bias for your movement patterns that depends on many factors and is probably not necessary to change completely... However, adding another muscle (previously inhibited and inactive) to a movement can be an absolute game changer when it comes to injury prevention and to some extent performance.
In my case I really struggle to activate my quads. Sprinting, squatting, deadlifts, front-squats, jumping, etc. even after a long layoff result primarily in glute soreness, hamstring soreness, and even abdominal and calf soreness before quad soreness... Unsurprisingly I don't have very strong quads and can suffer from jumpers knee because despite being inactive you will use your quads isometrically as breaks for landing or stopping as you have no other movement pattern with which to accomplish this***.
The solution to this lack of activation is usually isolation work for the inactive muscle. It really depends the level of inactivation - after surgery when it's completely inhibited this won't work as you can't even voluntarily activate it - so EMS stimulation can be used to get it firing again. The absolute best thing you can do is find a closed chain exercise that still isolates the inactive muscle. For the VMO/patellar tendon single leg eccentric pistols on a slant board are one of the best exercises you can do - like Gukl when I do these and feel sore in my quads (the only way I ever do) I also have less knee pain. Skater jumps with an emphasis on the twisting can help people activate glute medius - which is a common inactive muscle.
Try to keep your activation exercises higher rep and a little bit less intense if possible - you are going for muscle/strength alone with activation but remember this is a previously inactive pattern so the tendon that bears the load in this pattern might easily get overworked if intensity is too high...
*** Wanted to note that despite the fact that quads are our primary breaks I talked to a coach that has video of athletes who are so glute dominant that they find ways to get around this slightly... When landing from a two footed jump you will see quad dominant athletes safely land without locked knees and descend into a squat to handle the shock... Others will land with a fixed knee angle and bend the back and stretch the hamstrings on landing - I tend to do this and it's probably one of the more unsafe landings you can do... Additionally, some sprinters will attempt to slow themselves by actually dragging their toe on the ground which will send shock on the tibialis and to the hips to keep some of the breaking force off the quads... A large price to pay and one of the many reasons why "quad-dominant" is not necessarily always a bad thing... Ideally we should be both quad and hip-aware and able to use our hips to finish explosive movements and our quads to allow us not to get hurt...