I wasn’t sure where this question belonged, but I’m curious to hear if anyone here has come across the following case:
Inability to voluntarily contract all glute muscles, along with at least the lower and middle portion of the trap muscles. During exercise, no ability to feel these muscles working. Touching of the muscles during exercises which involve their contraction doesn’t aid voluntary contraction, nor does it aid in the ability to feel the muscle working. The upper body posture is moderately kyphotic, and the hip flexors are tight but no exaggerated anterior pelvic tilt. Cuing for exercises is difficult since the concept of voluntarily squeezing those muscles to address a form issue doesn’t make sense.
Any suggestions or experience with this?
Thanks in advance.
What are the actual problems you perceive due to this issue?
Mainly in cuing. For instance during the glute bridge exercise, squeezing the glutes at the top of the rep to get full extension of the hips, and to target better the glutes over the hamstrings and lower back. On the bench, squeezing the glutes for the setup of the arch. For accessory band exercises to help manage the kyphosis, to get the brain–muscle connection on the lower section of the traps and minimize upper trap dominance.
If you are able to achieve hip extension on the exercise (i.e., focusing on the movement rather than the muscle), your gluteal muscles are contracting voluntarily.
Again, focus on the movement (i.e., arching) rather than the muscle.
You seem to be creating a problem where there likely isn’t one by hyper-analyzing this stuff.
If you have an anatomically exaggerated kyphosis, this is not something that can (or should) be “managed”. We would recommend continued training with deadlifts, rows, chins, etc., again focusing on executing the movement rather than a particular muscle.
Additionally – “Upper trap dominance” isn’t a thing.
I recognize that there’s other cues for making corrections to exercises, such as telling an athlete “extend your hips” or “crotch to ceiling” on the glute bridge, but I am asking whether this is a common thing and if there are techniques out there that help establish that brain-muscle connection. It’s not crucial to resolve, but could have some utility. I’m aware of the term “glute amnesia” and have tried some of the ideas proposed to address it to no avail. In the case of arching on the bench, I have found focusing on squeezing the glutes to help avoid lumbar discomfort.
In the case of the shoulders I am referring to upper crossed syndrome, for which techniques exist that aim to loosen the pecs, deltoids, and upper traps while strengthening the lower trap muscles. I’ve found that there is sometimes a tendency to try to pull with the upper traps, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the corrective exercise.
To the extent that this is even an “issue”, outside of continued deliberate practice – not really.
Perhaps this is because “glute amnesia” is a made-up condition.
“Upper crossed syndrome” is also a made-up condition with no supporting evidence for its existence, clinical relevance, or treatment.
I would recommend familiarizing yourself a bit more with our content on pain, injury, rehabilitation, and the available evidence for these things. It seems you are getting caught up in a lot of the silly stuff that gets put out by internet therapists and rehab gurus.
Interesting. I haven’t heard anyone question those two conditions before, and in fact have seen them addressed by seemingly reputable sources, but I’m open to look into your thoughts on the matter.
Unfortunately, if you think a massage therapist or chiropractor is a reputable source of information, or take advice from people that do, that might be very true.
If you can’t literally see, like from across a gym, that a muscle isn’t working, then there is no way to tell short of an MRI scan or other testing like an EMG. If you to all appearances move normally, then even with hands on you nobody can tell anything. And more than likely you’re fine. Actual muscle paralysis or insufficiency is very noticeable. Heck, even an poor “mind muscle connection” will result in very poor form. I assure you, just because you can’t feel your ass, doesn’t mean it has fallen off.
I’m curious about your take on this upper body kyphosis and with your perspective that it shouldn’t try to be corrected/managed, what do you do in the case of an individual that presents this to a degree which prohibits the bar being placed in the low-bar squat position? Permanently use the high-bar in its place?
Depends what kind of kyphosis it is. If it’s structural, e.g. bony- you can’t fix anything. If it’s volitional, it’s not a problem that needs to be fixed.
An easy way to learn about a lot of the BBM crew’s stance on things is to go to google and enter the following formula.
[issue/question] barbell medicine.
This will either lead you to a forum post that previously covers the topic, a video or a article they have done on the topic.
What is nice about all the Docs is they provide citations to support 95% of their claims. The other 5% is them linking another one of their forum posts or articles that already have the citations.
Now time to beat a dead horse. If your muscles were not working, you wouldn’t be walking.