The Gluteals - Keeping Flexible

Last week I wrote about the hamstring muscles and the need to keep them flexible so it seemed only fitting to continue in that area and consider the Gluteal muscles. The Gluteus Maximus, Gluteus Midius, and Gluteus Minimus are three important muscles. These muscles can tighten and cause pain in the lower back, buttocks and even the thigh area. Taking a very hard fall or even trying to protect yourself from falling can cause a sudden tightening where these muscles join which we call trigger points.

I took two very bad falls, one when I was a teenager. I was roller skating and an overweight boy started to fall and he grabbed me and locked one of his skates in with my wheels of a skate and the rest was history. I fell so hard I had no feeling in my legs nor could I move them. I also wound up with a sprained ankle. The second time I was in my twenties and was walking to the babysitters to pick up my son after work and slipped on the ice. Again it was such a hard fall that I lost the feeling in my legs for several minutes. Since then I have had an extreme tightness on the right side of the lower back and buttock area and for years I have had to do exercises and even different forms of therapy to try to loosen things up when it becomes too painful to handle on my own.

The gluteus maximus attaches to several areas in the pelvis area, sacrum, coccyx, the femur of the long thigh bone and the broad thin band of facia called the iliotibial band. That band runs from the top of the thigh to the knee. This allows us to perform many activities like climbing stairs, walking up hills, we can rotate the thigh and turn the knee outward, running, jumping and rising from a seated position. The contraction of the gluteus maximus helps in controlling movement like sitting down, walking downstairs, bending and stooping to name a few.

When we are standing or walking the gluteus maximus covers our sitz bones but when we sit down in a straight back chair, the muscles slide above the sitz bones so we don't sit on the muscle. If we slouch just a little in the chair then we are sitting on the gluteus muscle. To understand this better I was told to sit in a chair and sit on my hands to find the sitz bones. This allowed me to feel the muscles move away and then if I slouched I could feel the muscles move back over the sitz bones. Lower back pain or pain in the buttocks is an indicator that one is not sitting correctly. Many of our furniture allow our lower backs to shift in such a way as to cause our gluteus maximus to cover the sitz bones which can over time increase stiffness and cause trigger points.

To stretch this muscle I found that laying on the floor and pulling one leg toward my chest and extending the other leg straight can help. If I am super tight I keep my knee bent on the leg I would extend until things loosen.

Another stretch I do is to bring the leg over the opposite leg bending at the knee and then gently pull toward the opposite shoulder and hold for thirty seconds.

To stretch the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus I stand, cross one leg behind the other and lean to the side that has the leg in front. I hold this for thirty seconds and switch sides. More can be found online for different stretches but these work well for me.

Update: My goal for this week was to work at stretching my hamstrings and I have been very pleased that I can now touch my toes both while standing or when sitting on the floor with my legs out in front of me. I have a couple of days where I felt less tight in the low back and buttock area and my walking felt smoother and less painful.

I also did "recess" every morning and most evenings which I can tell has helped with my posture and easier movement in the hip and legs. I "played" at the gym, Monday and Thursday and hope to get there Saturday and Sunday. Today I have a lot going on but who knows maybe there will be at least a half hour that will open up so I can scoot over to the gym. It has been very hard to get that 30 to 60 minutes of aerobic exercise in every day but I do try to move around more if I can't get to the gym on a certain day.

Next week I see my back surgeon and we will see if there are any changes in my lower back. I have been putting off having injections as I feel that exercise is the best medicine and it doesn't cost anything but my time.

My goal for this week is to continue with the hamstrings and work at getting more stretching in of the three different gluteus muscles. I also will aim for the 30 - 60 minutes of aerobic activities. I have been having two massage appointments for the last couple of weeks and might do one more week to continue to combat the pain in the low back from the leg machines that I had tries.

I hope you are enjoying the daffodils that are blooming all around. Spring appears to have finally sprung! Till next week!