How Strong Glutes Prevents Pain
Train your glutes and prevent pain! And not just because they are the most aesthetically pleasing muscle. Glutes are one of the most important muscles for everything from allowing proper movement patterns, improving stability, balancing out joints, preventing pain, and more! These muscles are well underrated for the good they do for the body.
What do the glutes do?
For the purpose of this post, when I talk about glutes I am going to be talking about the gluteus maximus. The glute max is the biggest glute muscle covering almost the entire posterior side of the pelvis. Hip extension is the main movement of the muscle. This movement is when the femur is pulled backwards behind the body. It is also responsible for slight external rotation of the femur bone, but not much.
The glutes are one of the biggest muscles in the body. They are responsible for stabilizing the entire pelvis, so obviously it would be a good thing if they are working properly. Instability in the pelvis can wreak havoc on the body. Lower back pain being the most common result.
How do strong glutes prevent pain? Stability is a huge component. If the glutes are not firing, the whole core and lower body have some kind of instability. They don’t call it the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex for nothing!
Lower back pain
Like I stated earlier, inactive glutes cause instability. This leads to other muscles and ligaments trying to do the job of stabilizing the body when they are not supposed to. For example, the sacrotuberous ligament is a common one that will try to do hip extension to make up for sleeping glutes.
Lower back pain is also commonly caused by something known as lower crossed syndrome. This is characterized by an anterior pelvic tilt, something caused by tight hip flexors which pull the pelvis forward. In this situation, the glutes would prevent or relieve back pain by balancing out joints if they were firing correctly. However, this pelvic tip has the abdominals and glutes in a lengthened position and the lower back in compression, commonly located around L4-S1. This is so prevalent today because of the long periods spent sitting causing our anterior hips to tighten up. Due to reciprocal inhibition, when the hip flexors, mainly the iliacus muscle, are in a shortened position for so long, the glutes cannot contract when we stand and move around. We are literally sitting on our butts, shutting them off!
Knee pain
Yes, the glutes go beyond the hip! Lateral stability is a big job the glutes have on the knee via connections through the iliotibial tract. When the glutes are not activated, the foot will be more likely to fall into pronation. This pronation of the ankle causes knee valgus, or knees falling in. Knee valgus causes strain on the medial knee in the pes anserinus where the sartorius, semitendinosus, and gracilis muscles insert.
Strengthening the glutes
Like I said, exercising the glutes are not just for looks. Get your body out of pain with proper exercises to strengthen this sleeping muscle! Exercises with the body going from hip flexion to hip extension are going to be the best for targeting the glutes.
- Hip Thrusts: The exact motion of this exercise is hip extension, which is why these are so effective for strengthening and growing the glutes. Adding a band above the knees can increase the intensity and add to the activation.
- Single Leg Deadlift: Can be done with or without weight. Focuses more on the posterior line so a little hamstrings will be involved. Reach down toward the opposite foot keeping the back flat and core engaged.
- Step Ups: Have shown to have more glute activation than squats and deadlifts. The higher the step, the more the glutes work. This movement moves the hip from a very flexed position to standing.
Most of us are sitting for long periods of time so start slow and focus on feeling the muscle contract. Every single body is built differently so some exercises that work best for one person may not for another. It is important to learn where you are and what you need. Knowing your biomechanical and neurological patterns is a good gauge to know what is most effective for you. Get going and get pain free!
Written by Danielle Barker