2 out of 3 Doctors Agree: I Have a Lazy Butt

I have a condition.  The technical term used by my physiotherapist is “sluggish glutes”.  In layman’s speak, I have a lazy ass.  LAS.  Lazy Ass Syndrome.  And just to emphasize, I wasn’t diagnosed AS a lazy ass, but WITH a lazy ass.  That’s an important distinction.  It doesn’t sound fatal, but a lazy ass is just the start of a catastrophic chain reaction. 

My weak and ineffective back muscles end up compensating for my under-performing buttock.  My lumbar region was not designed to bear the burden assigned to my caboose.  It’s not entirely my fault that I have a weak and ineffective back – some of it I can blame on genetics (but, admittedly, I’ve been neglecting my core work – something I sorely regret at the moment.  Note to self: practice what you preach).  I have mild scoliosis and some of my lower vertebra are in permanent flexion (weird yes, but it’s just the way I’m made and this newly discovered tidbit explains why upward facing dog is a nearly impossible pose for me even after 10 years of yoga), which means my back isn’t well-equipped to handle the impact of running.  And my back certainly isn’t well-equipped to handle the extra work load generated by my slothful rump.  Adding injury to insult, if you will.   

My hamstrings try to do their part in picking up the slack created by my derrière, but they are already working at full capacity.  Fortunately my hamstrings are not weak and ineffective and so they don’t deteriorate as quickly as my back from the added burden, but my increasingly tight muscles tell me that they too have suffered consequences.  Compensating for my idle posterior over significant periods of time (like during a long run) causes my back to tire and my hamstrings to tighten, which then puts additional strain on my hip flexors.  Not long after my hip flexors tighten, tire, and succumb.  You can see the dominoes toppling – back, hamstring, hip flexors, to be continued.  By the end of the run I’m struggling to maintain some semblance of an upright posture and I’m experiencing what can only be described as Pain.  With a capital P.

The solution, according to my most recent consult, is threefold: 

1. I need to wake up my bum before every run to remind it that I expect it to do some work.  Otherwise it will stay in slumber ’til noon like a sleep-deprived teenager, then will spend the rest of the day eating pizza and watching TV.  No more lazing about expecting the rest of my body to cover the slack.  No more free rides.
2. I need to ramp up my core work from minimal to maximal.  I vow to return to pilates.  I stopped going in November for no reason other than I got distracted and kind of forgot about pilates.  Like the whole concept of pilates was erased from my memory.  Now that I’ve remembered I shall return.   Today.
3. I need to strengthen my gluteuses (minimus, medius, and maximus – you all need to shape up).  By the the fall race season my goal is to have Buns of Steel.  And I will have time-warped back to the 1980s where I show off my buns of steel while wearing a unitard, legwarmers, and a wide neck shortie sweatshirt loosely worn off of one shoulder. 

Let’s get physical.