What is Dead Butt Syndrome? How gluteal memory loss leads to major problems

It’s a pretty cheeky nickname, but dead butt syndrome is a real thing. And it can cause real problems. No ifs, ands or buts about that.

“Dead butt syndrome” is the nickname for gluteal amnesia. Your glutes (in case you forgot them) are the three muscles that make up your buttocks, glutes, badonkadonk, troublemaker, or whatever you call your backside. They consist of the gluteus minimus, the gluteus medius and the largest of them all, the gluteus maximus.

Gluteal amnesia is when your glutes essentially forget what they’re supposed to do. Such a condition can develop after you spend a lot of time without using your glutes. And as a result, your glutes have become deconditioned.

You see, your glutes are just like any other muscle. If you don’t use them, you essentially lose them. They actually weaken and atrophy. This isn’t good because the glutes play an important role, in addition to giving the junk in your torso and Kim Kardashian much of her look. Your glutes help stabilize your spine, torso, hips and pelvis.

Without your glutes working properly, the joints and other muscles in your lower back, hips, and lower extremities have to compensate and carry most of the load. This is like when the middle manager doesn’t do his or her job and everyone else has to work extra hard all the time. This can cause your spine, hamstring and hip adductor muscles, knees, and even your ankles to experience too much stress and strain.

The end result can be a whole host of injuries that may at first seem unrelated to your butt, but ultimately are. These include ankle sprains, anterior cruciate ligament injuries, hamstring strains, lower back problems, femoroacetabular impingement and balance problems. Heck, gluteal amnesia can even lead to wear and tear on the hip joint over time that is so bad that it eventually requires a hip replacement.

The problem is that gluteal amnesia doesn’t literally manifest itself as a pain in the ass early on, even though it will eventually become a pain in the ass figuratively. Chances are you won’t even notice your dead butt unless you’re looking for it. Gluteal amnesia may or may not result in pain or numbness in your buttocks. Often the dead butt is only recognized afterwards, as it were, after lower back, hip, knee, ankle or other leg problems have arisen. In fact, you may not even think about your butt until irreparable damage to other parts of your body has long since occurred.

So the key is to pay attention to your butt and get your butt in gear while working your glutes hard and, well, hard. Since it can take twice as long to rebuild your glutes than atrophy, it’s better not to let them get to the “who am I” and what should I do stage in the first place.

Of course, one clear risk factor for dead butt syndrome is sitting on your butt all day. So try to build in times during your waking hours when you get up and move your a#%#%. You can set a timer or incorporate stretching and exercise into the beginning of every meeting, including those on Zoom. Convert sitting activities into standing or walking activities. This can be done by using a standing desk, ditching the car journey for a more active way of commuting and holding standing meetings. In the meantime, remember the number 20, like every 20 minutes. That is the frequency at which you should move.

Assuming you’re not twerking regularly every day, you’re probably underusing your glutes in general. You also want to continue to activate and strengthen your glutes. The simplest exercise is squeezing the glutes. Here you alternate between contracting and relaxing your glutes. To make sure you’re actually using your glutes, grab your butt and feel if it gets harder as you try to squeeze your glutes. Of course, do this discreetly and do not make funny sounds or expressions where others can see.

There are a number of weight-bearing exercises that can strengthen your glutes. These include squats, where you bend your legs and lower your hips, as demonstrated in the following photo:

You also do lunges, where you step one foot forward or one foot back, like this:

Other step-ups with or without knee raise:

All of these exercises involve contracting your glutes against some force, whether it’s just gravity and your body weight, or weight like dumbbells you’re carrying. In all cases it is important to use the correct form. Otherwise, you may put too much pressure on other parts of your body, such as your back and knees, and not really work your glutes.

You can also do various non-weight-bearing glute exercises. For example, you can create bridges in different ways. All of these variations consist of lying on the floor face up and then squeezing your glutes to lift your hips straight up toward the ceiling, as shown in the following photo:

After holding this position for a short time, lower your hips back to the floor and repeat this cycle of lowering and raising your hips. Here’s a one-legged variation of the glute bridge:

You can also do bird dogs, which have nothing to do with the animals or food. Instead, bird dogs involve first getting on your hands and knees and then alternating between stretching your right arm and left leg while simultaneously stretching your left arm and right leg, as shown here:

There are also other exercises such as mussels and rainbow cranes.

These glute exercises can also help treat dead butt syndrome after it has already occurred. Depending on how much your glutes may have lost, you may need physical therapy to ensure your regimen is aggressive enough.

At the same time, it will be important to deactivate and relax the muscles that have been overused to support the lack of glutes. So you’ll want to regularly stretch, roll out, and strengthen your hamstrings and hip adductor muscles. Just like with the glute exercises, make sure you use proper form. And don’t jump straight into exercising without stretching first, especially if you’ve been sitting for a while.

All this should convince you to keep your rearview mirror. Always watch your butt. When you stand up or lift things, make sure your glutes are activated and squeezing. You may have heard of the term ‘save your butt’. But it’s your butt that can ultimately save other parts of your body.