Have you ever felt that deep pain in one or both of your butt cheeks? This might be an uncomfortable question to answer, but considering how many athletes struggle with this issue, it bears asking nonetheless. Such a pain is typically referred to as “piriformis syndrome” – the piriformis being but(t) one of the muscles in your butt. Yet while the root of the issue could indeed be stiffness in this particular muscle causing it to clamp down on a nerve, it’s also highly possible that the other soft tissues in this area, such as the gluteus maximus and minimus, are the ones that are locked down. The glutes are among the most powerful muscles in the body and play a role in just about every movement type, not to mention setting our posture when standing. So rather than trying to target the piriformis alone, go after your glutes with these mobility exercises:
Hunting Pigeon Pose
OK, a hunting pigeon isn’t a real thing, or even a strange hybrid between a homing pigeon and hunting dog. Rather, it’s one name we could give to a modified version of a classic yoga pose that can feed some slack into your, well, butt region. To do it:
—Sit on the floor
—Put your right leg out in front and roll the top of it over onto the outside, until the outer edge of your quad is on the floor
—With the top of your right leg straight, position your lower leg so the outside of the calf is on the ground and this portion of your leg forms a right angle with the top part
—Put your left leg behind you as far as it will go without feeling like something’s going to pop, as if you were doing a front splits
—Keeping your back flat, lean slightly forward until you feel tension in your right butt cheek. Hold for 10 seconds, then release and repeat. The traditional pigeon pose would have you stop here, but instead, once you’ve collected a couple of minutes in the first position, next:
—Lean your torso out towards your right hip, contract for 10 seconds, release, then repeat a few times
—Now do the same but turning your torso to the inside instead
—Hunt around between the inside and outside extremes until you find a tight spot. When you do, spend some time there.
—Repeat on the other side.
Glute Smash
As mobility master Dr. Kelly Starrett says, “Painful tissue is dysfunctional tissue.” And what do we do with dysfunctional tissue? Smash it into submission with some manner of ball or roller. Here’s how to apply this to your posterior:
—Sit on the ground
—Place a ball or roller under one butt cheek
—Put your hands down and push yourself up off the floor a bit, then sink down into the mobility tool
—Slowly roll back and forth, side to side and diagonally across the ball or roller
—Spend at least two minutes on each butt cheek
Posterior Chain Banded Mob
Sometimes the restriction needs a different stimulus to release all that tacky tissue. Enter the banded posterior chain mob, which puts not only the glutes but also the hammies and other soft tissues of the posterior chain under a couple of hundreds pounds of added tension. Here’s how to do it:
—Attach a medium strength resistance band to a bed post or squat rack at about hip height
—Step into the other end of the band with your right leg and loop the band around the top of the leg
—Take a big step forward with your right leg
—Make sure the left leg is lined up behind the right and just a couple of inches to the side
—Hinge at the hips to place both hands on the ground either side of the front leg
—Bend your right knee a little and then straighten the leg – you should feel tension along the high hamstring (adjust the band height to target either the glutes/upper hammies by going up a bit or the mid to lower hammies by moving the anchor point down)
—Repeat 40 to 50 times
—Move your front foot position out and hands to the outside to target the lateral seam of the glute and hamstrings, and to the inside to go after the medial side
—Repeat on the other leg (this is an awesome mobilization to reset the femur in the hip socket if you’ve been sitting too long)
