Gluteal amnesia

[malkin]

If it is really bad, is it Gluteal Alzheimer's?

[KnottedYet]

It's all cuz women can lock their knees and hips and shut off their core and glutes. (Saving calories for winter by locking joints instead of using muscles.) All kinds of cr@p follows.

DON'T LOCK YOUR KNEES!
(and please tuck your tailbone under and hold your lower belly firm and flat)

[VeloVT]

I was diagnosed with something similar in my lower abs when I had crippling ITBS. My upper abs were strong, my hips, hams, glutes, etc were strong. My PT said, "I suspect it's not that your lower abs are especially weak, per se, but that they just aren't talking to the rest of your core muscles, so they're not firing when they should." I was used to relying on other muscles (lower back, hips, etc) when I should have been using my lower abs. She gave me a bunch of exercises that were easy, from a physical/strength point of view, but focused on getting my muscles to work together, and then a few pilates core exercises that were pretty painful when executed slowly and carefully. It did help.

[jessmarimba]

Those were the first muscles I was given exercises to work on when I started PT. Lower abs and large muscles in the lower back.

[tulip]

P-I-L-A-T-E-S. Seriously. It gets all those muscles--your powerhouse. It's even more important as we get older so we can hold ourselves up. Many falls by elderly people--the ones that result in broken hips and such--are not the result of tripping, but of not being able to hold up one's own body.

And good posture, of course. Pilates helps with that, too.

[VeloVT]

Oh, JessMarimba's post reminded me, I may have had a tad of "gluteal amnesia" too . This was a few years ago now, but I remember during the assessment I was asked to resist something and then point to the muscle I was using to do it... I had no trouble resisting, but apparently (out of habit, again) I was using gluteus maximus instead of the gluteus medius that I should have been using. The "easy" exercises I mentioned above were to get my gluteus medius to fire. Again, not really weakness (my one-legged squats were excellent, apparently) -- just not recruiting appropriately, if that makes sense.

I wish I could afford a PT to oversee my training (even when I'm not injured). PT is the awesomest thing ever.

[PscyclePath]

Have never heard of it... but I confess I had about the same reaction Tulip did; it sounds like you lost your butt, and forgot where you left it.