Dead Butt Syndrome – does it also affect you?

Probably many of you are wondering at this point what this syndrome is, after all, the gluteus muscle is one of the largest muscles in our body, so how could it be dead?! But yes! A sedentary lifestyle (especially “coronavirus”) is definitely not good for us – and our buttocks in particular. We sit behind a desk, move by car or public transport, and our buttocks become lazy. You may be seeing an image of a flat, unsightly looking butt in front of your eyes, but the visual issue is not the only problem. Are your buttocks struggling with this syndrome? How to check it? How to deal with it?

Maybe at the beginning let’s talk about the syndrome itself and the anatomy of the buttocks. DBS is also called “gluteal amnesia” or “stupid buttock” and recently it is increasing its popularity not only among people sitting but also among athletes – runners and cyclists. Why also applies to active people? It is because, for example, they engage the thigh muscles more or have a bad movement pattern. The buttocks consist of three muscles, the strongest of which is the gluteus maximus muscle, and the remaining (sometimes omitted) muscles are the gluteus minimus and  gluteus medius muscles.

A sedentary lifestyle causes the attachments of the muscles that bend the hip (e.g. the iliopsoas muscle) to increase their tension – the flexors are excessively shortened and thus the extensors (i.e. our buttock) are stretched. Our nervous system “forgets” how and when the gluteal muscles should be activated. The buttocks become lazy and cease to fulfill their function of stabiliser and the main extensor of the hips. This leads to pain in the hip or knee joints or the lumbar spine.

Do you want to check if the syndrome applies to you?

Stand in front of a mirror and do a squat – if you find that the movement  is straight from your hips and your back is excessively bent, your knees are getting in, or you are having difficulty returning to a standing position, your buttocks may be weak and / or inefficient.

Let's take care of our buttocks not only because
that we want to have a slim butt, but also because
thanks to this we can avoid pain and injury.
Avoid a sedentary lifestyle and use consciously
gluteus muscles.

Failure to activate the buttocks in runners can lead to the “runner’s knee”, which you can read about here.

Before, after reading this text, you get up from your seat to do some squats or deadlifts, and then with a barbell, and what a stimulus! It is better to hold off, because you will be more embarrassed … Start with exercises that mobilise the gluteal muscles, perform each exercise with a conscious tension of the buttocks.

I have prepared some suggestions for you. Remember to consciously tighten your buttocks in each exercise. To work!

Exercise 1.

Take a roller in the form of a roller or a ball (if you do not have a hard ball, e.g. tennis), sit on it and move back and forth, try to roll your whole butt.

 

 

 

Exercise 2. 

Lie on your back, knees bent, feet facing each other – pin your buttocks together and push them up so that your body is in a straight line – hold for awhile and lower it.

 

Exercise 3. 

Lie on the side of the mat, hips and knees bent, the tape is above the knees –  perform the abduction motion with the leg on top, remember to keep your feet together all the time.

Exercise 4. 

Go to a propped knee and “get down” to your elbows – straighten your hip, knee bent and foot facing you. Remember not to arch your back in a straight line.

Exercise 5. 

Stay propped up – perform the abduction movement (to the side) making sure the knee and hip stay in position. Also, remember not to tilt to the sides, it is better to make a small movement, but correct.

 

Exercise 6. 

In this exercise, we focus on the final phase of the squat, i.e. consciously increased activation of the buttocks during extension. Do a small squat and, standing up at the very end, squeeze your buttocks.