Chances are, you’ve heard how sitting all day is bad for your heart (and waistline). Turns out, sitting also causes big problems for your butt. While gluteal amnesia may sound like a spell that Harry Potter learned at Hogwarts, it’s a very real condition—and pretty prevalent these days, thanks to our sedentary lifestyles and jobs that tie us to a desk or driver’s seat from 9 to 5 (if not longer).
Gluteal amnesia, or "dead butt syndrome," happens when your glutes "forget" how to activate properly.
Sitting all day is the main culprit, Pete McCall, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise, tells SELF. But it's more accurate to blame an unfortunate side effect of parking your butt in a chair all day: tight hip flexors. "When you sit a lot, the hip flexor gets shortened and tighter, which leads to the butt muscles not firing or working as optimally as they should," Chris Kolba, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., physical therapist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, tells SELF.
This happens through a process known as reciprocal inhibition, which can occur in any opposing muscle groups in your body. “Reciprocal inhibition occurs when tightness in one muscle [your hip flexors, in this case] creates length in the muscle on the opposite side of the joint [your gluteal muscles, or glutes],” McCall explains. If this occurs for too long, the process that tells the lengthened muscle to activate—specifically, the neurons that fire and signal the muscle fibers to contract—is compromised. In other words, when your hip flexors get super tight, your gluteal muscles become lengthened and desensitized, and won’t generate much force (or “turn on”) when you try to engage them.
“Prolonged sitting can also create a ‘laminating effect’ between the muscle fibers, in which the continual compression of the tissue causes them to get tacked down, losing their elasticity and ability to contract optimally,” Kolba explains.
Unfortunately, no one’s immune to this condition, even if you work out frequently.
Because of the less than perfect posture most of us have when we're sitting—shoulders slumped, lower back rounded, core disengaged—it's very possible to go all day long without activating your glutes, Sara Lewis, celebrity trainer and founder of XO Fitness in L.A., tells SELF.
And certain workouts can actually exacerbate hip tightness, instead of help. "The repetitive nature of running or cycling can lend itself to tightness in the hip flexors, too,” Kolba says.
“I can say that the majority of my clients presented some level of glute amnesia when they first started training,” Kira Stokes, a NASM-certified celebrity trainer and creator of the Stoked Method, tells SELF. “Running or cycling are better than sitting, of course, but they’re mostly quad-dominant workouts, so you still need to give your glutes some extra TLC.”
If your glutes don't do their job correctly, the rest of your body may pay for it.
The gluteal muscles (a group of three muscles that make up the buttocks) help power us through so many activities, from walking and carrying heavy things, to performing both cardio and strength exercises. When your glutes lose strength, other muscle groups in your back and lower body are forced to take on the extra work to compensate, setting you up for issues such as lower back, hip, or knee pain, Kolba says. It can also lead to muscle imbalances throughout your body and other lower body injuries, adds Stokes.
