Getting to the bottom of it.....glute activation

Check this guy out....

he knows a thing or two about glute activation, the rest of us tho? Ours have got lazy.

not through a lack of exercise mind you most people in gyms will be doing squats and lunges, hip extensions and abductions but our glutes just really aren't developing and this can be a supplementary causal factor for low back pain...something that mr Gluteal up there wont experience!

So why aren't our glutes working?

Mainly because we are sat on them so often, with many of us office bound, driving more and then relaxing either on the sofa or seated in restaurants, we are spending more and more time in a seated position.

yes it's great isn't it?

well no, not really. We spent thousands of years evolving to stand tall and be active and now the last 20 years has seen us take an evolutionary step back into our seats.

I am confident to say that this is one of the biggest causal factors of low back pain seen today.

so why is the seated position so bad?

well two things oocur...

1) your hip flexors become extremely shortened and over active.
2) your glutes become lengthened and underactive.

Without going too indepth the agonist and antagonist muscles (paired) either side of a joint are served by the same nerves equally.

If one of those pairs becomes short or over active the nerve signal becomes inhibited to the opposing muscle...in this case the glutes (your bottom) get switched off (as they are also in a lengthened inactive postion when seated).

Over time this leads to the hip flexors pulling the lumbar (lower) spine out of position as the pelvis tilts forward, putting pressure on the lower back and being a precursor to low back pain.

The gluteals become weak and don't activate as they should in squatting, lunging, walking and the hamstrings tend to take over their work (synergistic dominance) (alongside the pelvic tilt this leads to us thinking we have tight hamstrings) leading to potential hamstring strains.

So what can i do to save my glutes?

first....stop stretching your hamstrings and focus on the hip flexors. See a qualified personal trainer to help you stretch or teach you to perform it yourself so that you can relax your hip flexors asap.

second.... get up out of your chair, if your'e stuck in the office all day get up every 30 minutes and stretch out your legs, walk to the water cooler and increase your fluid intake, go flirt with the boss, whatever it takes but get out of that chair.

third and final... get your trainer to give you specific glute strengthening exercises and show you how to really activate them, simple additions such as a resistance band around the knees during a squat force you to push outwards to keep knees in line with the toes and automatically activate your glutes....theyl thank you for it :)

bottoms up :)

nathan