Gluteal Muscles EXPLAINED

What are Gluteal muscles?

The gluteal muscles are a group of three muscles, which make up the buttocks: the gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus and gluteus medius. The three muscles originate from different points around your hips and insert onto the femur (thighbone).

What is the role of the Gluteal muscles?

The functions of the gluteal muscles include: extension, abduction (moving limb away from midline), external rotation (rotation leg away from midline) and internal rotation (rotation towards midline) of the hip joint.  These muscles play a crucial role when you walk, run or do anything that requires you to stand up and extend at your hip joint.  If these muscles become weak it can start to cause you problems.

What causes weak Gluteal muscles?

Weak gluteal muscles can be caused by a number of different factors such as:

• Sitting down for long periods of time
• Driving for long periods of time
• Poor posture
• An abnormal gait

What are the symptoms that your gluteal muscles are weak?

There are a few symptoms you can look out for that may indicate your suffering from weak gluteal muscles:

• Pain in the Gluteal region
• Lower back pain
• Knee or hip pain
• Poor single leg balance
• Sciatica

What can happen if your gluteal muscles are weak?

Gluteal weakness decreases the mobility of your hips which therefore causes your bodies load and force transfer to overload other areas of your body such as your lower back.

Due to this weakness in the muscles you may also start to notice joint issues from the surrounding areas such as the sacro-iliac joint (the dimples above your buttocks) which can be very debilitating.

Way in which SB Sports Massage & Rehabilitation can help prevent and treat this problem.

 

At SB Sports Massage & Rehabilitation unfortunately we see this problem an increasing amount due to the modern way of life involving a lot of sitting and movement patterns that do not strengthen the glutes to the level that is needed to prevent problems. This has given our therapists plenty of experience in treating and preventing these issues and listed below are the key tools we use in order to address gluteal issues:

• Sports Massage to reduce tension and pain
• Personalised exercise rehabilitation targeted at increasing gluteal strength and muscle activation
• Stretches that can be carried out at home and work to reduce muscle tension and increase flexibility through the hips and surrounding areas

Due to the glutes being located so close to the lower back and producing glute weakness and injury causing symptoms that are very similar to those associated with lower back pain it is very important that if you are suffering with any of the symptoms named above then you contact ourselves or other health professionals to get this correctly diagnosed and treated before this becomes a chronic issue.

 We hope this helps you 

Danny, Clinic Director