Squeeze your Butt Everyday, 5 Ways to Spot Dysfunction
Gluteal dysfunction is plaguing the human race. People who sit for long periods and stand are building a pattern of dysfunction in their hips and back. When your glutes aren’t working, they arent creating hip extension and when you walk, and other muscles in your body have to work to manipulate your pelvis in such a way that hip extension is mimicked.
There are several ways to SPOT a gluteal dysfunction.
1. The Muscular Muffin top
The dreaded muffin top is not just an unfortunate formation of fat, it is an adaptation to a movement patterns not involving the glutes. The QL and some other muscles become thick and strong in an adaptation that creates pelvic rotation as opposed to hip extension, the muffin top muscles hike the pelvis on one side as the hamstring pushes through the opposite side so you can walk without hip extension. You can see my small remaining muscle muffin above (July 2021).
2. Everted Feet
Someone who stands naturally with their feet point way out is not going to access proper muscles when they walk. They will primarily propel themselves with the muscles in the line of force, in this situation the hamstrings. Big clue in looking at the feet.
3. Saggy Glutes
If someone’s glutes look ‘deflated’, they are. Without use, the body isn’t going to send them a lot of blood and they lose their force producing tone. When your glutes are deactivated, they downregulate. Sometimes they downregulate so much that you can’t squeeze them at all even if you tried.
4. Extreme forward neck
When your neck is very forward and your spine is tight in the wrong position, the fluidity of movement shared with the spine and pelvis is broken. In this situation you are surely compensating, and your glutes may not even be your biggest issue.
5. Very Tight Hamstrings
All muscle tension is a response to use, if you aren’t using your hips and legs properly, some areas will be lax and other areas will be stiff and immoble. If you hamstrings are having this issue, it’s because they are prepared to keep mimicking hip extension and have lost their mobility as a result.
Some ways to feel a gluteal dysfunction is stiffness, tightness, pain, in the low back, hips, legs. I have tested the glutes of well over 1000 people and less than 5, probably less than 3% initially have functioning glutes. Finding and fixing this issue is NOT rocket science.
- Lay down.
- Toes out.
- Back and stomach STAY relaxed.
- Squeeze your butt.
- Relax in slow motion.
It’s that easy! It really, actually is. Even if you don’t find a major indicator of dysfunction, squeeze your butt 20x a day, it’s like taking a multivitamin. A butt squeeze a day keeps the doctor away.
