Having weak glutes sounds like a bad intestinal condition if you don't know what the term refers to. However, your glutes are critical back muscles that contribute to your overall body strength and physical performance. Historically, a weak glute condition was not a common problem because many occupations involved physical exertion. People today, unfortunately, spends far more time sitting in front of a computer than physically straining and exerting. This occupational shift has contributed to less use of body muscles and as a result weaknesses and related injuries often happen earlier in life.
What are Glutes?
The glutes are made up of three specific muscles: the gluteaus minimus, the gluteaus maximus and the gluteus medius. All of three of these muscles are located in the buttocks area. The gluteus maximus is responsible for leg motion. It helps your legs and hips rotate. The medius is more of a basket-holding muscle, covering and strengthening the area of your pelvis and core. The minimus muscle provides strength to the hips. The support and strengthening contribute to coordinated control of your legs.
Why Do Weak Glutes Cause Injuries?
The problem is overcompensation for weakness. Having weak glute muscles makes other body muscles work harder. That increases the risk of a strain and injury, because the muscles end up doing more than they are designed to do.
Sitting for extended time periods is the major cause of weakening of the glute muscles. They don't get used, moved or exercised. As a result, these muscles weaken and atrophy. Then, if suddenly expected to perform strongly, they fail and have to be assisted by other muscles to make up the difference.
How Can I Fix My Glutes?
A common myth is that glutes can be strengthened by simply aggressively walking and climbing stairs. Unfortunately, hours on a stairmaster will do more for your quadriceps and calf muscles than for your glutes. This is because walking doesn't fully engage the glute muscles.
Focused exercises are needed to provide stretching and resistance training to the glutes. This activates them fully and helps eliminate the softness created from too much sitting. Links to specific, approved exercises can be found in the Resources attached of this article.
Why are my Glutes Being Blamed for My Hamstring Pain?
Again, overcompensation is the core problem. The hamstring is fundamentally affected by the strength of your glutes, particularly the gluteus maximus. Being unable to fully affect rotation and coordination is a surefire way to overstrain your hamstring. The hamstring is responsible for primarily controlling speed as the leg returns forward from contraction when walking or running, and as a secondary function for knee flexion. If the glutes' coordination and rotation control is weak, the hamstring will be prone to overexertion to do the same job. The result can be an overstretching of the hamstring muscles at the wrong time, or worse, a tear in the muscle fiber. Usually overlooked, the body core muscles from the stomach group to the glutes can make or break the performance of other muscles, especially the legs.
How Will I Know When My Glutes are Strong?
Again, overcompensation is the core problem. The hamstring is fundamentally affected by the strength of your glutes, particularly the gluteus maximus. Being unable to fully affect rotation and coordination is a surefire way to strain your hamstring. The hamstring is responsible for primarily controlling the speed the leg returns forward from contraction when walking or running and as a secondary function for knee flexion. If the glutes' coordination and rotation control is weak, the hamstring will be prone to overexertion to do the same job. The result can be an overstretching of the hamstring muscles at the wrong time, or worse a tear in the muscle fiber. Usually overlooked, the body core muscles from the stomach group to the glutes can make or break the performance of other muscles, especially the legs.
Increased Physical Performance
Strong glutes will make themselves known by increased physical performance. You will find that aches and pains and lack of muscle coordination will cease. The legs will be particularly telling by being able to run and jump better. Sports such as soccer, jogging, biking, running and tennis will all see improvements with glute muscle training.
Tags: your glutes, glute muscles, gluteus maximus, other muscles, affect rotation, affect rotation coordination