All about that booty!

This post is brought to you by our Certified Athletic Therapist Phoebe!

Suffering from low back, hip or knee pain?

Maybe you should blame your booty!

With an increase in desk jobs, and a more sedentary lifestyle, our core and glutes have become inactive, and are less able to protect our spine and low back from external forces. There are three gluteal muscles – gluteus minimus, medius and maximus. Gluteus minimus and gluteus medius work together to abduct your leg, meaning it works to bring your leg out to the side of your body. Gluteus maximus on the other hand is the main hip extensor in your body, working to extend your leg backwards. Your glutes are the largest and strongest muscles in your body! If they aren’t activating properly, excess stress is being put on your quads, hamstrings, and low back. This doesn’t mean your glutes aren’t strong, they just don’t want to kick in when they need to because other muscles are doing the work for them. For example, if a team leader isn’t pulling their weight at work, the team can pick up the slack for a while, but eventually the system starts to break down causing issues in the workplace.

Here’s an exercise for everyone to try!

Lie on your stomach and simply try to lift up your leg. What muscle do you feel kick in first? Your hamstring, glute or low back muscles? On most individuals it’s usually hamstring or low back and then glutes last. The correct firing pattern for this exercise is glutes, hamstring then low back! So how can you fix this? It’s simple – contract your bum! If you can isolate one glute at a time, your brain will recreate the pathway from your brain to your glute max making it able to fire again. This is such a simple exercise that you can do anytime throughout the day.

So get that booty firing again!

More questions, or want to learn more? Book your appointment with Phoebe, our resident Athletic Therapist!