Could Your Back Pain be Caused by Weak Glutes?

Sitting at a desk in front of a computer working for 8 to 10 hours every day has quickly become the norm in our society, not including the time spent sitting on the couch after work or on the weekends. To no one’s surprise, all of this sitting is wreaking havoc on people’s backs and overall health. Low back pain is classified as one of the greatest causes of disability world-wide, and there’s a good chance that many people reading this post are dealing with back pain themselves! This fact has prompted numerous studies and research in recent years to help determine a link or cause of this global affliction, and researchers have found the most-likely factor to be underactive gluteal muscles.

There are 3 major gluteal muscles: the gluteus maximus, the gluteus medius, and the gluteus minimus. Each of these muscles play an incredibly important role in stabilizing the pelvis and hips, as well as maintaining spinal stability. Knowing this, researchers have determined that sitting for hours upon hours every day is causing major dysfunction in these muscles, particularly the gluteus medius muscle. Acting as one of the main stabilizer muscles for the lumbo pelvic-hip complex, the dysfunction in this muscle is caused by the shortening and resulting underactivity of the muscle, leading to increased spinal loading. Put simply, sitting for long periods of time causes our glute muscles to shorten and become weak, therefore placing more of our body weight on the spine (which already has 2x the amount of body weight load while sitting), and therefore leading to a myriad of back issues. So what can we do about this?

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to combat this! By strengthening and stretching the glute muscles, we can help to reverse the effects of long-term sitting and potentially help relieve some back pain. There are many strengthening exercises that can be performed for the glutes, but one particularly effective exercise we perform here with many clients at FT is the lateral band walk. Placing a mini band around the ankles, assuming a slight squat position, and walking sideways (aiming to keep tension on the band) targets the gluteus medius and is a great strengthening exercise! However, we cannot forget to stretch the glute muscles to help lengthen them from their constant shortened position from sitting. One excellent stretch we utilize here at FT is the figure four hip/glute stretch during our manual stretching, but it can also be performed on your own. To do the figure four stretch, start by laying flat on your back, crossing one leg over the other bent leg, and pulling them towards your chest. This will stretch the glute muscles really well and should be held for around 15 seconds each side.

By prioritizing glute strengthening and stretching exercises just a few times per week, as well as being mindful about sitting habits, we can help to fight against the chronic back pain that plagues so many of us.