A person may have a flat butt because of age, genetics, glute use, or problems with glute activation. Luckily, you can add moves to your workout to help build bigger, stronger glutes. Those options include glute-focused cardio exercises, general glute-focused exercises, stretching, and unilateral movements.
Loss of volume in the buttocks can be due to various reasons including weight loss, aging, lack of exercise targeting those muscles, or certain medical conditions.
This can happen if you spend too much time sitting in a chair, on the couch, or in your car. Even if you're relatively active, you may develop DBS simply from not exercising your glutes enough! The same type of muscle imbalance can happen in highly active individuals who have powerful quads or hamstrings.
Focusing on exercises that target the glute muscles is essential. Here are some effective exercises: Squats: Variations like barbell squats, goblet squats, and sumo squats. Deadlifts: Conventional and Romanian deadlifts are great for glute activation. Lunges: Forward, reverse, and side lunges can help build muscle.
You can fix dead butt syndrome with exercises that activate and strengthen the glute muscles. Examples include lateral lunges, marching glute bridges, and side-lying leg lifts. Dead butt syndrome is a colloquial term for when the gluteus medius does not activate correctly.
Disuse (physiologic) atrophy is usually reversible, but it won't happen overnight. You can recover from muscle atrophy by exercising regularly and eating a healthy diet. You may start seeing improvement after a few months, but it may take much longer for you to fully recover your strength.
As you age, your butt may flatten and lose shape due to lower amounts of fat in the buttocks and loss of collagen in the skin. Dormant butt syndrome is a condition that occurs when your gluteal muscles are weak, and your hip flexors are tight causing them to not work as efficiently as they should.
Cardio for Glutes
Two exercises that can work your glutes and add cardio to your workout include side skates and power skips. 3 You should also be doing more with your cardio than steady treadmill runs if you want to lift your butt and zero in on the glutes, said Pasternak. Instead, opt for walking or sprinting.
Your glute muscles are key to supporting your whole body. You use them when you stand up, walk or climb stairs, and they are important for balance and posture. Sitting for a long time can make your glutes weak, so be sure to take a lot of movement breaks when you have to sit a lot.
If you have weight to lose or if you're carrying extra body fat, squats (and other lower body strength exercises) can help reduce weight and/or body fat, making your butt and thighs comparatively smaller, tighter, more toned and more compact.
Kneading is a technique where muscle tissues within the buttock region are pulled and squeezed. Kneading is used to improve blood flow and loosen muscle tightness. The pulling and squeezing actions performed during kneading encourages an increase in blood flow to the buttock region.
"But several factors can cause dysfunction in this muscle, leading to reduced or delayed activation. Factors causing this dysfunction can include prolonged sitting, hip flexor muscle group overactivity, and pain from local or distal injuries. Many people have 'flat butt' syndrome from sitting for so long."
The main cause of gluteal amnesia is a sedentary lifestyle (which is why—no joke—this is also called "chair ass").
Yes—when it comes to building your glutes while walking, it's all about the incline. If you're on a treadmill, “anything above a five percent grade is going to target the glutes much more than a lower incline [or flat surface],” says Matty.
Weak glutes can be addressed through a variety of exercises, including squats, lunges, bridges, and hip abduction exercises. Strengthening these muscles can help improve posture, stability, and movement, and can help reduce the risk of lower back pain, knee pain, hip pain, and ankle pain.
Fat Depletion
The body loses fat uniformly, impacting areas like the buttocks where volume contributes to shape. This loss leads to a less plump appearance, often described as sagging. Efforts to lose weight can result in a deflated look, especially when weight reduction is rapid.
Also, sleeping in the fetal position weakens the butt and that position, too, is very popular. “Sitting for extended periods throughout the day weakens the glute muscles and puts strain on other parts of our core, as does sleeping in the fetal position,” explained Kolba.
Researchers found that those who performed gluteal squeezes increased their hip extension—or glute—strength by 16 percent compared to an 11 percent increase in those who performed glute bridges. Gluteal girth also increased in the group who performed gluteal squeezes.
Walking or running at an incline is one of the simplest ways to activate your glutes. Aim for a 10-15% incline to get the best results. To add variation, try brisk walking and transition into intervals of running. Pro tip: Keep your hands off the treadmill rails to ensure full glute engagement.
Typically, the most prominent cause of weakness in these muscles is lack of activity or sedentary lifestyle. As technology advances and more people are confined to desk jobs in which most of the day is spent in a sitting position, the glutes atrophy and the anterior hips become accustomed to a shortened position.