by Tricia Clark, PT, DPT
Let’s talk about my favorite muscle! It’s one of the gluteal muscles, aka the buttock, the seat muscles, or my nickname for it, the “back pocket”. My favorite of this muscle group is the gluteus medius, or the side of that back pocket. Often overshadowed by its larger counterpart, the gluteus maximus, the gluteus medius (glut med), in my opinion as well as many other medical professionals, is functionally more important. As a physical therapist, if I could give every patient one exercise to better their overall body it would be to strengthen the gluteus medius. What’s also awesome is that Alkalign hits this muscle with specific exercises in every single class!
The gluteus medius sits on the side of your buttock, starting from the pelvic crest and outer side of pelvis, behind the gluteus maximus, and ending on the greater trochanter of the hip as well as the IT band that runs down the outside of the upper leg. To put it simply, it goes from our butt to our hip. The reason it is so important is that it works to help stabilize our pelvis while walking and helps to lift the leg to the side and turn out, called hip abduction and hip external rotation. So why does this matter? Without this muscle, not only would we not have a nice round look to our backside, we would have some serious problems. Research shows that with weakness in the glut med our knees would buckle inward and our pelvis would have excessive motion. Thus, the whole alignment of our lower legs from the hips to the feet would be out of place. Then in turn, we would have knee, hip, and foot pain. So, you have probably deduced that if we are stronger here, as research has shown, then we can negate all these issues. One muscle can make such a difference in the body!
My favorite exercise for the glut med is a side-lying leg raise with the leg slightly behind the plane of the body, slowly being lifted up and down a few inches. Look for this in the Barre Align class. Another good exercise is a standing side step with a back pocket muscle squeeze which can be found in the Cardio Align class. Also, working on single leg balance, like in the hinge position, engages the standing leg while the lifted leg reaches back and sideways, thus strengthening the glut meds of both legs at the same time! These can cause that great, but sometimes not well liked, “burn” in the “seat”.
But, a word of caution, please know that this muscle is often under-developed and although it needs attention, it needs to be built up slowly. Mix in the exercises with your everyday workouts (as Alkalign does) to get that good burn in the side of the back pocket. A warning; if you overwork it, you might be walking funny for a while. So keep challenging your body and working out in a safe and effective way at Alkalign!
Tricia Clark completed her undergraduate degree in Kinesiology and has a Doctorate in Physical Therapy and works as a physical therapist at Westcott Physical Therapy in Los Altos. She grew up as a competitive athlete and has a specialty in athletics and orthopedics. Her background helped to develop her passion for mentoring young athletes in both rehabilitation following an injury and in injury prevention. She is thankful to have found Alkalign and hopes her professional expertise will help the team continually evolve their methodology and offerings.
