Are You Working Your Butt Off?

Many people will look at their butt in the mirror and think, “I just want to lose this extra fat off my butt” or simply “I want a smaller butt”. Although this may be a personal goal of yours, this blog is not about how to get you butt smaller or leaner. It is about getting your butt turned on or specifically, activating your gluteus maximus.

For a number of reasons, many people end up with deactivated glutei maximi. It is part of the lower cross syndrome in excessive anterior pelvic tilt. We see this very often and is much more common than a posterior pelvic tilt.(1) The biggest contributor being our sitting lifestyle which puts us in a position where our hip flexor muscles are shortened and hip extensors (gluteus maximus) are lengthened. This causes the hip flexors to be overactive and hip extensors to be underactive in our daily life. We sit many hours in the day especially if we have a desk job. So essentially, because you are sitting for prolonged periods, you are constantly working your butt off.

Whichever reason caused you to have excessive anterior tilt, sitting or not, you need to fire those glutes back up again. Most of us need glute work regardless of having excessive anterior pelvic tilt.

In our Bootcamp class we make it a point to work your glutes! From beginning to end you are either stretching, activating, or fully exercising to get your butt turned on and working properly. Our warm-up and static stretching is general, but you will find that we stretch those tight areas before and after the workout. Following our pre-workout static stretches, we hit dynamic stretches and specific movement patterns to prep the body for tough leg exercises to come. This sequence of exercises will get your butt in gear. Instead on throwing you into 50 yards of lunges, Breakthrough Bootcamp takes you through the steps in preparation for those intense step ups, bleachers, or squat jumps. This will insure your butt is working instead of compensating with other nearby muscles. In fact, a compensation pattern will eventually result in injury.

Working your butt correctly (gluteus maximus) may even make for a shapelier one.

References:

1. Thomas R. Hetzl, PT, ATP (2006) Understand and Caring for The Anterior and Posterior Pelvic Tilt: Retrieved from http://www.ridedesigns.com/Web%20Documents/Proceedings-paper-ISS-06.pdf

Downtown San Jose Fitness Bootcamp. Women's fitness bootcamp serving the Naglee Park Neighborhood and Downtown San Jose. Women's fitness, fitness bootcamp, mom's fitness, and injury prevention.