A good friend once told me that your backside is the most important thing to train because it is the last thing someone sees when you leave the room. While that may or may not be true, I am referring to a different pair of glutes…. The glutes of the upper extremity, our Latissimus Dorsi (Lats)
If we started viewing and training this muscle like we do the glutes of the lower extremity, we would all be better off. Not only are the lats heavily involved in trunk and core stability and contralateral glute activation, their disuse plays a major role in low back pain and muscular imbalances that can appear in any activity that requires trunk rotation and core control, which includes all activities except for sitting. Fascial lines exist, throughout the body and explain how force is transmitted between, along, and amongst muscles. Imbalances anywhere along these fascial lines cause overload and dysfunction elsewhere.
For those who have a hard time feeling their core or glutes fire, start paying attention to and activating your lats, and you will likely re-establish a quicker connection into the glutes/core.
All athletes and non-athletes need a proper core strategy. Therefore, trunk rotation and proximal stability and training this muscle should be at the forefront of that goal. Like the glutes of the lower body, these muscles are the largest of the upper extremity.
The human body functions much like a hose. If you take a hose and kink it at multiple places, the result will be a reduction in power at the spout. If we continually attended to the spout, nothing would change. The human body is the same; continually trying to activate your glutes when they don’t activate easily means you are missing the blockages down the line.
Here are some exercises that can help:
So I guess my friend was right. Although for different reasons, our backside is in fact the most important because it heavily ties into the front side of the body through the core.
Suffering from pain? These muscles may be playing a role. At One on One we understand how to incorporate a full body approach where we can evaluate and prescribe proper ways to facilitate the right muscles.
Come in for your evaluation today.
About the Author:
Stephanie is passionate about working with individuals with spine-related pathology. It all relates back to our spines – the foundation from which all our extremities and their muscles stem.
