Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Flabby butt sydrome

It is an epidemic.

"You see your real problem is that your butt muscles are weak," the diagnosis from 4 independent physical therapists! Describing four different butts mind you.

Subject #1. Early 30's. Previous gymnast, excellent swimmer. Serious running and biking. Chronic knee pain, eventual hip pain.

Subject #2. Early 40's. Serious biker for years, leading to hip pain.

Subject #3. Mid 20's. Running, biking, swimming. Back pain.

Subject #4. 33 year old (me). High school volleyball and basketball. College volleyball. Recreational athlete in 20s. Triathlon training in 30s. Running up to 6 miles, biking 100+ miles a week, swimming 5+ miles/week. Hip pain, femoral acetabular impingement, the rest is in the blog.

A coincidence that PT evaluation revealed weak gluts in all of us? Is it the biking? Is it the running? We are in shape, exercising to be/stay healthy.

Is there something else we should we be doing?

3 comments:

VeganHeartDoc said...

About a year and a half ago, I was doing a lot of running and not a whole lot of anything else. That strengthened my hamstrings, but my quads and glutes were quite weak, and as a result of the muscle imbalance I ended up with an awful case of iliotibial band syndrome.

I still have iliotibial band problems every so often, but not nearly as bad. Now, I do more leg weight training and indoor bicycling three days a week to keep the quads and glutes strong.

Glad your recovery is coming along!

Anonymous said...

I have lifted weights regularly twice a week since 1994. My second knee surgery in 1995 i was told was a result of muscle imbalance with weak hamstrings compared to quads. My most recent diagnosis was hip displasia was the cause of every lower body pain i have every had (except the foot bone spurs). This includes causing the 2 knee surgeries, the ITB problems, the patello femeral pain, the overpronation of my feet leading to pain on the top of my foot. Contributing factors: extra tight calf muscles, overly flexible hip flexers and hyperextended knees. These three factors were all blamed on genetics and gymnastics. On a plus (bittersweet i suppose) i now have very strong hamstrings which are balanced well with my quads but these very strong hamstrings took over for my flabby butt and lead to the hip pain. When does this end? Should we have butt strengthening classes in gym in high school for the women to prvent these future problems?
ravenlou (case number 1)

JC said...

When researching before my hip surgery I came across an article where Asian (China/Japan) women were studied. They found that despite anatomic abnormalities they had less arthritis and hip pain. The hypothesis was that they did more squatting (like to sit and pee). Seems kinda out there to me.