🚨 TIGHTNESS IN THE SIDE, WEAK GLUTE MED?

✅ Do you have tightness in one side of your lower back, it might be your glute that is causing it. The glute med is responsible for supporting the contralateral pelvis when the opposite leg is lifted. When this muscle is weaker or even not doing its job, it can cause a compensation in the QL. This muscle can start compensating to perform or assist the glute in its job by supporting the pelvis from the rib cage. When this is severe you get a Trendelenburg gait, which is characterized by a drop in the pelvis opposite of the standing leg.

✅ If you have tightness in the side, you may want to try strengthening the opposite glute med with exercises like clams, single leg rdls, side lying hip abductions or monster walks. This can potentially help decrease the load off the Ql. It is also useful to use motor control to train the glute to activate properly when in a single leg position.

✅ Next thing you can do is stretch the side that is tight with a QL stretch as shown above. This can help decrease the over activity of the muscle. Another thing you can do is if you sleep on your tight side, switch to sleeping on the opposite. This isn’t the cause of your issue but can help decrease hip hike at night which may make it easier to decrease the overactivity of the QL.

✅ Have you experienced this kind of tightness, I have and am working on fixing it right now.