Glutes, min, med and max. Which one is one is working?

Glutes, you have three glute muscles on each side of your body, which make up your bottom. The glute minimus, glute medius and the glute maximum. They do different jobs, so they need to be exercises in different ways.

Closest to the skin is the glute maximus. If you press into the soft tissue of your bottom, you are pressing into your glute maximus. This huge muscles covers up most of the other two glute muscles. The glute maximus is the most powerful hip extensor muscles. This muscle is responsible for taking the thigh behind your body line. (Hip flexion the thigh raises towards your tummy, hip extension the thigh is behind the body line, this happens when the back foot pushes off the ground when we walk). The glute maximus also helps the body with the movement of hip adduction (stand on one leg and raise the other leg out the the side of your body up towards your hand/arm. Adduction is the movement of this leg back in towards the body). Finally the glute maximus is responsible for hip lateral rotation (closing the legs together as if you are trying to rotate your knees together as much as possible). The glute maximus is a very busy muscle.

Under the glute maximus you have the glute medius. This muscles is very important. it is responsible for abduction (lifting you leg away from the body, out to you side towards your arm). More importantly, it is responsible for stabilising your pelvis when you lift you leg and foot off the floor to take a step. A weak glute medius will impact your ability to walk and increase the wiggle or drop of your hip at each step. The Glute medius is responsible for medial rotation through the hip (rotating and opening the thighs/knees away from each other).

Finally the glute minimus which is under the glute medius and the glute maximus helps the glute medius with medial rotation (rotating and opening the thight/knees away from each other) and abduction (lifting you leg away from the body, out to you side towards your arm).

Simply the Glute maximus has very different jobs in the body to the glute medius and glute minimus. This is why it is important to differentiate between the muscles and make sure the harder to reach deeper muscles are working along with the glute max.

Comments

When I stretch my hip flexor muscles I feel it in the front of my thighs. Is this right?

The short answer is yes! In my first post I talked about the movement of hip flexion and listed the hip flexors. We have already covered the iliopsoas the main flexor of the hip. Today I am going to talk about the rectus femoris muscle which also assist with hip flexion. The rectus femoris is the large muscles at the front of your upper thigh. If you sit down with a tray on your lap, the tray would be resting on your rectus femoris. It is part of the quadriceps, four muscles on the front of the leg between the pelvis and the knee. Rectus femoris is the only quadricep that reaches over the hip joint as it originates on the front of the pelvis. In class I often reference your ASIS ( A nterior S uperior I lliac S pine), you have two and they are the nobly bones you can feel through your skin at the front of your pelvis. Well you also have two AIIS ( A nterior I nferior I lliac S pine) this is another nobly part of the pelvic bon...

Tight hip flexors from sitting at my computer all day! How to release this feeling at home.

At home there are a number of ways to release tight hip flexors. Think about the main hip flexor the Iliopsoas for a moment. It originates in the lumbar spine attaching to the vertebra at the bottom of your back, it then attaches to the inside of the pelvis (illiac crest the bony bit you feel at your waist) and then passes through the pelvis and connects to a nobly bit of the leg bone your can't feel at the top of your inner thigh (the lesser trochanter of the femur). Its helped by some other muscles, but to keep it simple we are going to only think about the Iliopsoas. Now think about being sat down, The front of your body is scrunched up. Your legs are brought closer to your lumbar spine (the bottom of your back) and the Iliopsoas is contracted or squashed in size. Now think about being sat for 3 hours. Upon standing up you might feel tightness along the front of your legs/pelvis. This tightness is from you hip flexors. Humans are ...

What is my rotator cuff?

We all have two rotator cuffs which are very important to our shoulder operation, one inside each shoulder. Your rotator cuff is made of four muscles that provide joint security (I love this term, a tiny little police force living in your shoulder making sure that the glenohumeral (shoulder) joint remains functioning). Why does your shoulder need a police force? Well the ball and socket joint of the shoulder is a bit rubbish (and also very good *). It is not like a caravan and car ball and socket joint where you have a deep strong connection (a bit like the hip). It is more like a scallop shell and a stick with a bulbus end. It fits ok, but really needs lots of tape and string to keep it together. Your rotator cuff muscles are the police, the tape and the string that hold this amazing joint together. The next part is only for reading if you are super interested in the names and actions of the muscles. The four muscles of ...

Katie Leaver Pilates

Search This Blog