Mom Butt And Low Back Pain
Jan 24, 2022
For this blog, I wanted to write about mom butt. I actually did a short TikTok video about it and it got a lot of comments. That is why I decided to make a more comprehensive version about it through a blog.
In the TikTok video, I showed how the mom butt can happen. I was at the sink doing the dishes and you can see in the first part of the video that my butt was clenched and tucked under. I instructed people to shake it out, relax the glutes, and learn to engage their lower abdomen again. I also gave some tips through the short TikTok video like opening the cupboard so that one foot is up on the ledge. That way, it helps to keep from chronic clenching.
Why Moms Have Mom Butt
Usually, women lose the lower abdomen to brain connection during pregnancy and compensate for the shift in gravity through butt clenching. If we continue to do this, this can lead to an atrophy of the glute max muscle and we go from having the nicely shaped upside down heart to a right side up heart and it flattens the butt.
This is something that I struggle with, too. My son is two and a half years old and I still have to keep reminding myself. We are in this pattern when we get pregnant. We expand, our center of gravity changes really quickly, our body does not want to fall forward, and our core isn’t tapped into as much. Our body is a master compensatory organism and we grip onto our glutes to keep us from pitching forward. It is helpful in the short term, but it is not helpful in the long term. When you have the baby, your core isn’t able to engage as much, your center of gravity shifts again, and you are still clenching your glutes.
The Other Component Of Mom Butt
There’s another component to mom butt and it has to do with STRESS. When we are stressed or carrying a full load, we tend to carry that in our shoulders or we feel ourselves clenching our glutes. As we squeeze the glutes, we are tucking the tailbone under and we are shortening our pelvic outlet or where the pelvic floor is at. It goes hand in hand and it is not ideal.
When you find yourself clenching and tucking everything, it’s best to remind your brain to relax. If you are at home, you can grab a coregeous ball and do some light massage to get better blood flow into that area.Clenching restricts blood flow to an area. You need full relaxation of a muscle to allow blood to rush back in. Blood brings oxygen and that keeps tissues healthy. Wahen you use a coregeous ball onto your glutes, you get better fluid movement and warming up the area brings some awareness to it to help it to relax.
Calling Your Attention To Mom Butt
Even just calling your attention to it is a great way to make yourself accountable. I had an Instagram message regarding the Mom Butt video. She told me that she just went back to work after being at home with the kids for five years and she has been having terrible low back pain. When she watched the simple video I made, it made her aware of what she was doing to her body. She added that simply being aware of not clenching and integrating the changes into her daily routine became a game-changer for her low back pain. Aesthetics is a partial motivator of fixing the mom butt, however, the pain aspect and protecting your low back and spine is a much bigger component.
What You Can Do About Your Mom Butt
There are also other reasons why you may not be able to tap into your core. One is you are recently postpartum or you had a C-section and you never worked on the scar. A lot of times, having that scar there is going to change your brain’s relationship with those core muscles. Doing very gentle and light mobilization with a make-up brush, cotton swabs, your hands, or a coregeous ball, will help to tie into the core. I have many videos regarding working with the scar on my Instagram and TikTok accounts if you need more information about this.
Your rectus sheath is cut in a c section and that’s going to contain the attachments for internal and external obliques, transverse abdominis, and through the rectus abdominis itself. It affects a lot of stuff and you really need to be able to access your core if you want to reintegrate and be able to do the things that you love to do again.
Diastasis Recti and Mom Butt
Just not clenching your butt might not cut it. Even if you haven’t had a C-section and just gave birth, that stretching out of the rectus abdominis and the rectus sheath can leave you feeling less connected with that area and you might have also suffered a diastasis recti. Most people have some level of diastasis during pregnancy and it can be a problem after pregnancy for them.
Diastasis is the separation along the linea alba/midline and this is not only for pregnant people. You could have a diastasis and not have ever been pregnant. For example, I had diastasis before being pregnant because of improper crunches and imbalanced workouts. Think of diastasis as a leak in your abdomen energy wise. When you try to engage pressure, it’s going to be not regulated well because there is that separation in your abdominal wall. That can leave you feeling unstable and if your brain feels unstable, it is going to make up for it in other ways like using your glutes to hang on for dear life so that it gains that stability for itself.
Conclusion
Just to wrap things up, your mom butt may be caused by stress, structural stuff, or if you are in an activity that requires you to tuck your tailbone under and clench the glutes under. Another part of the core musculature is the pelvic floor. A dysfunctional pelvic floor can cause mom butt as well because it affects how the core functions. If a dysfunctional pelvic floor causes poor engagement, you will need to address both before alleviating the need to overclench your glutes. Doing pelvic floor openers will help relax that area so that the glutes can relax as well. You also want to tap into your core so that your brain feels safe enough to relax the glutes. Later, you also want to try doing some exercises that will tap into recruiting the glutes and actually getting them to engage in a good and healthy way where they can fully contract and also fully relax.
You have to let go of the mindset that if you are contracting something all the time you will be super strong and it will build muscles. I want you to think of it as a bicep curl. When you do a bicep curl, you go all the way down and all the way back up. If you are doing a bicep curl only at the top portion, it will not be build muscle. It is very ineffective and it will not allow that full relaxation and then the rush of blood coming into the area.
These are things to think about if you feel like you have mom butt or you noticed throughout the day that you are a culprit of clenching all the time after reading this blog. Whether it is from stress or a functional issue, it is best to try the different approaches I discussed earlier to know what is causing your mom butt and how you can avoid doing it.
If you have any questions, you can drop it in the comment section or you send me a message through Facebook or Instagram. I’d be happy to do another podcast about your questions. Also, if you want me to talk about something specific, let me know!
You can also check my TikTok account as I use the platform to educate viewers about movement, chiropractic education, yoga, pregnancy, and more!
