Gluteal Amnesia? Dead Butt?

Dead Butt? Ever heard of this before? It’s common but not often talked about. Welcome Covid19 because it has really made this a topical topic. So what is Gluteal Amnesia? Your glute muscles not long more in coordinated fashion with the other muscles in the body to perform their main function: keep us upright by supporting our pelvises. This often shows itself as mid and low back pain, knee pain, hip pain, hamstring pain while sitting is also very common and sometimes the first clue.

Why is appears so much now with Covid19? With the change in our ability to travel, walk indoors, exercise in gyms as much, our lack of movement gives our body the chance to forget correct movement pattern. Our hip flexors tighten up (think front of the abdominals and front leg muscles closest to the pelvis) and as they do so our bodies starts to compensate for that tightness by not telling your glutes to “fire” in the correct sequence for correct body posture and movement. There is a term for this called muscle fire sequencing is physical therapy and personal training fields.

So now I need to get up and move right? Well, start with loosing the tight muscles then start working on getting rid of the compensations causing the glutes not to fire correctly. Work with a medical professional of your choice to keep another set of eyes on your progress. Help your body by stretching your hamstrings, squats, and glute sqeezes (right then left then both) help remind your body work how to fire those muscles and show your body how tight the others are. Some of my clients love the glute bridge stretch is also great but it is one that I ask people to make sure they are doing it correctly. For some extreme cases I suggested check in with a physical therapist.