Do you use your booty when you walk?

The short answer is HOPEFULLY!! This might seem like a funny question, but yes, our physiology is designed that when you walk, you should be activating your “glutes”.

A.k.a – your butt, buttocks, bum, backside, behind, booty, boom boom, bottom, buns, caboose, can, cheeks, derriere, duff, fanny (non-British english), haunches, heinie, keester, posterior, rear, rear end, rump, seat, tail, tush = Gluteus maximus, medius and minimus.

The Glutes are your major players and then a lot of smaller muscles that have other twisting and turning jobs for your hips. And don’t forget your Pelvic Floor is the base of your whole pelvis.

Why do you need to know about using your BUM?

It’s quite common in our modern world of sitting that our bum bum’s become dumb dumb’s. They stop doing their job and it make it so other parts can’t effectively do their job either.

In an ideal walking pattern, your glutes contract as your hips are moving forward over your toes – So that’s when your leg is straight down- on its way to being behind your hips – and before your knee bends- to move your foot in front of you again.

Go ahead, take a few steps and feel it. Do you feel it?

Our derriere muscles can lose their ability to work properly when we sit a lot and when our hip flexors (muscles in the front that pull your knee up towards the sky) become tight and weak from sitting a lot and a lack of regular movement and range of motion.

This can eventually lead to a smaller “gate” (how big your steps are) and even into a shuffling pattern in walking. Shuffling is a result of glutes turned off, core poorly activated and tight hip flexors (sometimes seen in a very elderly person, slightly bent forward, walking in little steps).

Why is it so important in Perimenopause?

It is important because it is the biggest muscle in your body. Why do you want muscle? As we go towards and beyond menopause, keeping muscle on your body is so important to overall health. Let’s avoid → “Sarcopenia is a syndrome characterized by progressive and generalized loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength and it is strictly correlated with physical disability, poor quality of life and death”. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4269139/

Muscles protects you, stabilizes you, makes you feel good, keeps fat at bay (muscles use more energy than fat) and much more.

More muscles = higher metabolism.

How do I make my booty work?

The easy answer is, be aware of it. Every time you walk, when you stand up from your chair, when you bend over to pick something up, you have the choice to give some attention to activate your glutes.

How do you know if you’re activating your glutes?

Stand up tall and pull your belly button towards your spine.
As you start to take a step, keep your belly in towards your spine.
As you finish one step, let your leg be fully straight behind you before you bend your knee. So you will be on your back toes. Stay there.
Shift your weight to the leg that is straight down, and lift your back leg off of the ground 2 inches.
Boom. Booty working. You can put your hand on the back of your butt and see if you can feel it moving.
Take another step and do the same thing.
Repeat et al.

The key to keeping your bum bum active and awake is repetition and consistency. Which is awesome, because when you walk, it’s repetitive. You might look funny while you figure it out, but the payoff is WORTH IT.

So many of us have turned off heinies as we have become focused on others and other things in this perimenopause time of life. Regular exercise might seem like a far off dream, but it’s not because it’s available to you as easy as taking a step.

Other ways to wake up your bum bum?

One of my favorite YouTube exercise channels is called Redefining Strength. She knows her stuff! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh2w-xqEwSz96sbn2afbOVQ

Basic Glute (butt) activation is here → https://youtu.be/Q8HzN_aC8NI

Advanced exercises here → https://youtu.be/uOq4jyzFZZY