Do you have Gluteal Amnesia?? Why you should care AND How to fix it!

We’ve talked before how sitting all day is bad for your health but what if we told you it can cause problems for your butt too?

The gluteal muscles (a group of three muscles that make up the buttocks) help power us through so many activities, from walking and carrying heavy things, to performing both cardio and strength exercises.

This week Dr. Rob is going to show you how to test if you are experiencing gluteal amnesia and how to fix it!

https://youtu.be/RjVqmcyEKcU

The main culprit of gluteal amnesia is tightness caused by sitting or being sedentary for the majority of the day.

Tightness in areas like your quads and hip flexors causes your glutes to become lengthened and weak. Over time this leads to reciprocal inhibition in your glutes which means that the muscle no longer responds when you try and activate it.

The neurons that trigger a contraction in your glutes become desensitized and you won’t be able to generate a ton of force during activities that require glute activation like walking, going up stairs, or lifting.

A lot of people have gluteal amnesia because we are guilty of sitting for the majority of the day with our shoulders slumped, lower back rounded, and core disengaged. You could go all day without really activating your glutes!

Gluteal amnesia by itself shouldn’t cause you pain, but when you really need your glutes to activate to perform an activity, your other muscles are picking up the slack. This could contribute to other pains and strains down the road.

If you’ve ever been doing an exercise that’s supposed to target your glutes and thought to yourself, “I don’t feel this in my butt at all”, then you probably are experiencing gluteal amnesia.

Thankfully there are a few ways to test for gluteal amnesia.

For the first test, stand up in a neutral position and look at your belt-line in the mirror. If where your belt would sit drops down toward the front then you may not be activating your glutes as much.

The second test requires a bit more work. You want to lay on your back with your feet on the ground. Lift your butt up into a bridge position and lift one leg. Hold here for 15 seconds and really pay attention to where you’re feeling your muscles activate. Is it the front of your thigh? The back of your thigh? Low back? If it’s anywhere except your buttocks then you’re experiencing gluteal amnesia.

Where you’re feeling muscles activate is where you need to loosen up!

The most common area for tightness is the quads, or the front of your thigh.

To help solve this you can foam roll your quads for about a minute on each side.

After this you want to ‘re-test’ your glutes to see if you feel it in a different area.

The second most common area of tightness is your hip flexors.

To stretch these out you want to get into a half kneeling position with one knee up and one knee down. From here you want to tuck your pelvis under so that you really get a good stretch through the front of your hip. Hold for about a minute and reach your arm above your head for an even deeper stretch.

Again you want to re-test your glutes to see if they’re more active when your hips are looser.

Still have gluteal amnesia? Not to worry! These are just the two most common causes but our team at Price Health can help you get to the root cause of your gluteal amnesia and its associated aches!

Call (519)885-5433, email info@pricehealth.ca, or click at the top of the page to book online.