Fitness
Back or Knee Pain? Uh-Oh, You May Have ‘Dead Butt Syndrome’
Nov. 13, 2025 – You won’t find any support groups for dead butt syndrome, aka gluteal amnesia, sleepy glutes, flabby butt, longback, or, for King of the Hill fans, diminished gluteal syndrome.
“They all mean sort of the same thing: weak gluteal muscles,” said Dean Somerset, a clinical exercise physiologist based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and co-author of Rock Solid Resilience.
If you guessed that small, weak, and poorly functioning glutes are often the result of too much sitting and too little exercise, you wouldn’t be wrong, according to Somerset.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based physical therapist Chad Waterbury, DPT, has seen it in healthy, fit, active clients, including a few professional athletes. “When we do exercises like squats, deadlifts, lunges, it’s very easy for other muscles to do the work you want the glutes to do,” Waterbury said
In both populations, the glutes stop doing what they should, and that can lead to serious problems up and down the movement chain.
If misfiring glutes force the lower-back muscles to take on loads they’re not meant to handle, the result can be years of back pain. And if the glutes fail to perform their stabilizing role in exercise and sports, you could be looking at chronically sore knees, or perhaps even an ACL injury.
That means the Venn diagram of dead butt sufferers includes people who sit a lot, active people, those with back pain, and those with knee pain. All those people, all that overlap, all those butts.
Is your butt among them?
Putting a Name to the Pain
Stuart McGill, PhD, coined the term “gluteal amnesia” to describe what happens when pain causes people to change how they move.
“In people with longer-term pain, the pattern of nerve pulses distributed to the muscles can become corrupted,” he explained. “The pain kicks off an inhibition pathway, so the brain finds a different way to do the same basic thing.”
That, in turn, changes the way muscles like the hamstrings contribute to the movement.
“But even when the pain has gone away, the brain often remembers the painful pattern,” McGill said. Which means it also forgets how to use the muscles appropriately and efficiently.
McGill, a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo and author of Back Mechanic, showed how the process works in a 2013 study. In that paper, he and his co-authors used “gluteal amnesia” and “gluteal inhibition” interchangeably.
The latter term is probably more appropriate, given that some people hear the former and think it implies gluteal dementia, as if the misplaced movement patterns can never be restored.
Fortunately for the gluteally deficient among us, they can. Just not in the way most of us would assume.
Hips, Femur, Knees, and Woes
While McGill was teasing out the connection between gluteal amnesia and back pain, Christopher Powers, PT, PhD, was looking at how abnormal glute activation patterns could lead to knee problems.
“The gluteal muscles control the femur,” he explained. “The femur’s half the knee joint. So by definition, the gluteal muscles control half the knee.”
Powers is associate chair of the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California, where he studies the root causes of the lower-body injuries. And he addresses a lot of them with the athletes and patients he sees at the Movement Performance Institute in Los Angeles, which he founded and owns.
His research has shown that a key function of the gluteal muscles is to prevent the femur from rolling inward during sports, exercise, or everyday physical activities.
“Once you stop using the muscle, the brain kind of forgets about it,” Powers said. “You lose the neural connectivity.”
And if the brain forgets how to stabilize the femur, just about anything you do, from walking to landing after a jump, will put stress on your knee joints.
How to Know if Your Butt is Dead or Dying
Remember, given that sedentary and active people have this issue, aside from chronic knee or back pain, you may not be able to tell if your glutes are firing properly or improperly.
Waterbury recommends this self-test: the single-leg glute bridge.
Lie on your back with one leg lifted out straight and the other leg bent at a 45-degree angle with the foot flat on the floor. Your thighs should be parallel. Raise your butt so your thighs and torso form a straight line.
Hold that position for 20 seconds (or as long as you can up to 20), while paying close attention to which muscles you feel are working the hardest. Lower your hips and repeat with the other leg.
If you felt the strongest contraction in your hamstrings or lower back, instead of your glutes, you need to improve your gluteal activation. Also, muscle imbalances are common, so it’s also not unusual for you to feel weaker in one glute or the other.
Two of Powers’s studies offer encouraging news for those whose glutes have lost their way.
The first, published in 2016, found that a week of glute-activation exercises increased neural drive to the muscles.
A follow-up, published in 2022, found that the same exercise protocol made the muscles more able to stabilize the femur.
So let’s take a look at the program.
Wake Up, Dead Butt
Powers’s program includes just three exercises, all of which may look familiar: clamshell, side-lying hip abduction, and fire hydrant.
Even if you haven’t used the exercises in your own routines, you’ve probably seen other people doing variations of them.
Here’s the catch: To do the program correctly, you have to forget what you’ve done or seen.
Instead of doing sets and reps, you’ll hold each position for up to a minute at a time. And you’ll need to do the program almost every day.
“When you do reps – up and down, up and down – the focus tends to be on the movement,” Powers said. Isometric holds like these require something else: intense concentration on squeezing the muscle in one continuous position.
That extended muscle activation allows the brain to reopen its channels of communication. If you follow the isometric holds with exercises that use the glutes, like squats or step-ups, you reinforce those neural signals.
To get the most out of the exercises, you’ll want to use a miniband positioned around your thighs, just above your knees. When you can hold a position for a full minute, use a more challenging band the next time.
Here’s a closer look at each exercise.
Clamshell
Lie on your side with your legs together and your hips and knees bent 45 degrees.
Lift your top knee straight up while keeping your feet in contact with each other.
Feel the squeeze in your glutes and hold for up to a minute. Switch sides and repeat.
Side-Lying Hip Abduction
Lie on your side with your top leg straight and bottom leg bent at the knee about 45 degrees.
Lift your top leg up and slightly back.
Feel the squeeze in your glutes and hold for up to a minute. Switch sides and repeat.
Fire Hydrant
To Powers, the fire hydrant is the best of the activation exercises. “If I were to pick one, I’d take it over the other two,” he said.
But it’s also the trickiest one to get right, since you’re asking your glutes to perform three functions, as you’ll see:
Kneel on all fours with your hips parallel to the floor and your hands shoulder-width apart.
Without shifting your hips, lift one leg up (hip abduction) and back (hip extension). Position your thigh so it’s neither perpendicular to your torso (straight out to the side) nor aligned with it (straight back), but instead about halfway between those two points. (It’s called “fire hydrant” because you’re mimicking a dog doing what a dog does to a fire hydrant.)
Now turn your thigh outward (external rotation) until you feel tension in the band.
The goal isn’t to achieve any particular range of motion. It’s to reach a position you can hold while keeping your hips level with the floor.
Hold for up to a minute, switch sides, and repeat.
Restoring Your Seat of Power
People in Powers’s studies did three isometric holds of each exercise, with each leg, twice a day for seven consecutive days.
But Waterbury, who studied under Powers at USC, uses a streamlined version of the program with clients, athletes, and patients.
Start with these exercises:
- Clamshell, 30 seconds per side
- Side-lying hip abduction, 30 seconds per side
- Fire hydrant, 30 seconds per side
Do the exercises six days a week for four weeks, either on their own or as part of a warmup before a workout. “That’s plenty to get the glutes activated,” Waterbury said.
After four weeks, do the exercises three times a week, preferably before a strength workout that includes squats, deadlifts, lunges, or other movements that use your glutes in coordinated action with other lower-body muscles.
You can also do more advanced versions of the exercises, as Waterbury demonstrated in this video.
What matters most, he emphasized, is that you make these isometric holds a permanent part of your fitness routine.
“Too many things we do throughout the day make your glutes want to shut down again,” he said.
Ultimately – and this is pretty good life wisdom – it’s a lot easier to keep your butt alive and well than it is to bring it back from the dead.
Fitness
Fitness coach debunks 8 ‘crazy’ exercise myths women still believe: From periods and workouts to weightlifting
Despite growing awareness around fitness and women’s health, several outdated exercise myths continue to persist. From misconceptions about strength training to beliefs surrounding periods, pregnancy and weight loss, many women still receive advice that isn’t backed by science. These myths can not only slow progress but also discourage women from prioritising their health and fitness. (Also read: Can eating too much protein be harmful? Experts explain why excess intake may do more harm than good )
Fitness coach Zoe recently addressed some of the most common misconceptions women continue to hear in a June 12 Instagram post titled, “craziest exercise myths women still hear.” Here’s what she had to say:
1. Periods mean complete bed rest
According to Zoe, menstruation does not mean you need to stop exercising altogether. “No. You can train. Just adjust intensity if needed,” she wrote, explaining that while energy levels may fluctuate during different phases of the menstrual cycle, movement and exercise can still be beneficial.
2. After marriage or kids, fitness is not important
Many women are often made to feel that fitness should take a back seat after major life changes such as marriage or motherhood. Zoe strongly disagrees. “That is exactly when it becomes more important,” she said, highlighting the need to maintain strength, mobility and overall health while navigating increased responsibilities.
3. A C-section means your core is gone forever
Recovering from a Caesarean delivery can be challenging, but Zoe says it doesn’t mean women should give up on rebuilding strength. “Wrong. It means you need rebuilding, not giving up,” she wrote, emphasising that gradual rehabilitation and proper training can help restore core function.
4. Walking around the house is enough exercise
While daily movement is important, Zoe points out that it isn’t the same as a structured workout. “No. That is movement, not full training,” she explained, noting that a balanced fitness routine should include strength, mobility and cardiovascular exercises.
5. Sweating more means more fat loss
Many people associate excessive sweating with effective fat burning, but Zoe says that’s a common misunderstanding. “No. It means you are hot,” she wrote. Sweat is the body’s cooling mechanism and does not necessarily reflect the number of calories burned or fat lost.
6. Running will ruin your uterus, boobs or joints
This long-standing myth often discourages women from running or high-impact activities. “No. Poor preparation and weak support is the issue,” Zoe said, stressing the importance of proper training, supportive gear and gradually building endurance.
7. Women should only do yoga, not weights
Strength training is still viewed by some as a male-dominated form of exercise, but Zoe believes women benefit greatly from lifting weights. “Women need strength too,” she wrote, highlighting how resistance training supports muscle mass, bone health, metabolism and overall fitness.
8. Carbs at night make you fat
Carbohydrates often get unfairly blamed for weight gain, especially when eaten in the evening. “No. Overeating does,” Zoe explained, pointing out that overall calorie intake and dietary patterns matter far more than the timing of carbohydrate consumption.
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.
This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.
For Hobart teacher Mary Holton, health means everything.
She started feeling the squeeze from cost-of-living pressures when fuel prices spiked again.
“Going out for just fitness alone was a bit much,”
she said.
Mary Holton says since joining the group, her fitness across the board has improved. (ABC News: Jake Grant)
Many Tasmanians are feeling cost-of-living pressures in a very physical way, with locals saying exercise routines are being dropped, health appointments delayed and wellbeing pushed to the bottom of the list as budgets tighten.
Ms Holton relies on multiple physiotherapy sessions each week, but says paid fitness classes simply are not an option.
“That costs … so to actually go to other classes as well, it’s out of my budget really.“
Ollie Mathewson conducts a free workout session. (ABC News: Jake Grant)
National data shows that almost half of Australians already fall short of minimum physical activity guidelines, and rising prices are making even basic care unaffordable for many.
Consultant clinical psychologist academic Kimberley Norris says this is exactly how unhealthy patterns begin.
“We tend to focus on the most stressful thing first … and health is one of those things we don’t think about until things go wrong,”
Professor Norris said.
Kimberley Norris says humans tend to focus on alleviating stress first and foremost, and warns de-prioritising health can become a cycle. (ABC News: Jake Grant)
For Ms Holton, going to a free workout group in her local community was a game-changer.
“Came down and absolutely loved it. It’s really nice to have a group and it just keeps growing,” she said.
Finding a free exercise group has drastically improved her health, as noted by her GP, and she is part of a growing trend.
Free exercise classes become a lifeline
At a community exercise class in South Arm, south-east of Hobart, the mood is upbeat, with laughter, movement, and a sense of relief.
Participation has more than doubled in the past year, with more than 100 Tasmanians now involved.
Trainer Ollie Mathewson said the surge was unmistakable.
“It’s free of charge for everybody … and over the last 12 months I’ve noticed a lot more people starting to come along,”
he said.
Ollie Mathewson says attendance at his classes has almost doubled over the past year. (ABC News: Jake Grant)
Across greater Hobart, free and low-cost alternatives are multiplying and include walking groups, community-run circuits, and morning and afternoon fitness meet-ups.
Tasmanians are increasingly organising their own solutions.
Mr Mathewson said connections drive outcomes.
“A lot of people talk about weight and strength, which are obviously insanely important, having other people there to push you single every week makes it a hundred times easier.“
Professor Norris said one’s health can be prioritised for free.
“What we know about health is, it’s more about sustainable wellbeing, it’s about quality of life,” she said.
“So rather than focusing on how much you can deadlift, how far you can run, it’s about how your life has improved and how close your life is to the way you want to live it.”
She said free options were vital because once people stop moving, it becomes harder to start again.
“If we develop routines in which health is not a priority, then we almost get stuck in this cycle of health always being last.“
Health appointments being delayed or dropped
For some Tasmanians, the financial pressure is forcing even tougher choices.
Amy Dakin says she can’t even think about getting a gym membership with all the other costs of living on her mind. (ABC News: Jake Grant)
Amy Dakin, who lives with a compromised immune system, often has no choice but to delay essential care.
“My health needs to be prioritised, but your bills come first, really,” she said.
Jordyn Rowbottom says she’s not the only one changing her hobbies to save on costs. (ABC News: Jake Grant)
Jordyn Rowbottom has seen the same pattern around her.
“People are being forced to cut what they can access,”
she said.
Professor Norris warns that these short-term decisions can create long-term harm, not just for individuals, but for the broader health system.
She said the combination of financial pressure and reduced physical activity would create a public health challenge.
Trainers adapting to shrinking budgets
Personal trainer Nickola Orr works with clients across different income levels, ages and needs.
She said affordability now shapes almost every program she designs.
“You want to make sure they can get as much help as they can within their price range,”
she said.
Nickola Orr is concerned about access to fitness and health services in the face of rising cost pressures. (ABC News: Jake Grant)
With the median individual spend on fitness in Tasmania sitting at almost $600 last year, Ms Orr said the warning signs were already visible.
“We’re going to see more results of long-term neglect; higher injuries, more need for mental health assistance. It’s going to snowball.”
Her concerns echo Professor Norris’s academic findings that once healthy routines break down, the consequences ripple for years.
“The changes are very small … while they add up over time, there is no immediate impact,”
Ms Orr said.
Calls for more free and low-cost options
Mr Mathewson hopes the success of free community classes will inspire governments and private operators to expand accessible fitness programs.
“More free options would be a great thing. There are a few now, but there should be more,” he said.
The Tasmanian government has said it will release its 20-year preventive health strategy this month, titled The Health Revolution.
A Department of Health spokesperson said the strategy “will address the broader social, economic, and environmental factors that influence health and wellbeing”.
“Specific issues about access to health services and programs are being considered through the Access to Health Services project, a Commonwealth-State partnership.
“The Health Revolution will complement that project by addressing the root causes of poor health and the underlying conditions to make it easier for Tasmanians to live well.“
If you’ve been faithfully logging your 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week, you’re getting the recommended weekly about of cardio. But a new study1 suggests that for women in midlife, that standard benchmark may not be moving the needle on cardiovascular fitness as much as we’ve assumed. Here’s what you need to know.
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