Glutes

Major Glute Muscles

Gluteus Maximus

The largest of the three muscles and is responsible for most of the butt’s shape, balance, posture, stabilizing and moving your hip joints. This muscle is attached at your tailbone, right at the bottom of your spine, to the top of your hip down into your femur or as you may know it, your thigh bone. This is a hugely important muscle required for everyday use and can cause issues with posture, pain in your hips, knees and back if it has been affected by imbalance, weakness, or injury. The glutes control the hip joint and thigh which is needed to maintain balance while running, walking, jumping, and squatting.

Gluteus Medius

One of your butt muscles that connects your thigh and hip bone together. It is smaller than the gluteus maximus and joins at the top of your thigh bone to the top of your hip. This muscles helps with movements that require moving your leg sideways away from your body and rotates your thigh. This muscle is important for stabilizing your hip, knees, pelvis and ankles when standing on one leg, walking or running, without this function you would tip sideways. Weakness in your gluteus medius can cause hip and, ankle and knee pain.

Gluteus Minimus

Both the medius and minimus have an important role in abduction moving the leg away from your body and hip rotation. This muscle is the smallest of the three gluteal muscles, attached from the top of your femur to your hip just underneath and attached below your glute medius. If one side is weaker than the other this can cause the hip to drop on one side and instability within your pelvis and posture. This is why a combination of squats and singulair side leg exercises are important to add into your exercise.

Tensor of the Fascia Lata

Connected at the top of your hip and attaches to your IT band at your thigh working along with your glutes to help with hip, knee, and pelvis stability. If this group of muscles gets tight you may notice knee pain as it pulls on your IT band which is connected to your knee and can pull your knee and hip out of alignment.

Deep Muscles

Deep Glute Muscles

Deep muscles associated with the gluteus rotators of your Hip

Piriformis

This muscle sits deep within your glutes and attaches at your sacrum bone- at the bottom of your spine to the top of your femur/thigh bone. This muscle is responsible for external and internal rotation. This allows the leg to rotate towards and away from your body and helps stabilize your hips and knees. Sometimes if your piriformis is tight causing impingement this presses on your sciatic nerve, sending pain through your glutes and down your leg.

Obturator Internus

This muscle is found on the inner bottom of your pelvis and attached to the top of your femur/thigh bone. This muscle helps with outward rotation, Abduction and Stabilization of hip joint. This muscle forms part of the pelvic diaphragm and is also responsible for supporting your pelvic organs and glands. Compression of the pudendal nerve by obturator fascia can lead to referred pain symptoms like burning, itching, cold, and tingling sensations in groin, legs, abdomen, and buttocks. Tight or inflamed pelvic muscles due to lifestyle or injury can also cause symptoms such as frequent urination, pain through intercourse, increased heart rate, constipation and discomfort.

Superior and Inferior Gemelli

This muscle works with obturator and helps to externally rotate your hips. It’s connected from the bottom of your pelvis/sit bones to your humerus/thigh.

Quadratus Femoris

Strong but small flat muscle connected from the top of your femur to the bottom of your hip bone and helps to externally rotate and bring your leg towards you/adduction. It also helps stabilize your leg