Did you know that although your muscles don’t technically have “on” and “off” switches, they can in fact be turned on or off depending on how you use them over time? In trainer speak we refer to this as whether or not your muscles are “firing.”

Consider your glute (butt) muscles. When primarily used as seat cushions at your desk, in your car, and on your couch or bed when you watch TV at night, they aren’t firing for most of the day. To compensate for this, surrounding muscles in your hips, quads (front of thighs), and hamstrings (back of thighs) sometimes “over fire”, and can be tight. Since your muscles are all connected, and in this case imbalanced, this is often the cause of lower back pain.

Fixing this can be as simple as re-training your glutes to fire appropriately and stretching out the tight muscles with these five moves below:

1. Glute bridges with single leg progression
2. Squats
3. Lunges
4. Hip Flexor/Quad stretch
5. Hamstring stretch

Watch the video below for a complete demonstration of these exercises.

I also recommend getting up and moving around as many times throughout the day as you can to get your blood flowing and give your seat cushions…I mean butt muscles…a reason to wake up!

 

Liz DiAlto is a NYC-based fitness and lifestyle coach. She specializes in teaching really busy women how to get tighter, leaner, and sexier bodies without having to work out for hours a day or obsess over everything they eat.

Liz strives to offer tons of workouts you can do from home with little to no equipment, healthy and easy recipes, and plenty of tips and tricks for fitting it all in around your busy schedule.

For more information about Liz DiAlto, visit her website at www.lizdialto.com.