The Max Factor

There's a great divide among yoga teachers about the correct way to use the gluteus maximus—the main muscle of each buttock—in backbends.

By Roger Cole

Some teachers are "Grippers," who urge their students to contract the gluteals as hard as they can; others are "Soft Pedalers," who try to sell their students the idea that they must always keep the muscles completely relaxed; and still others are "Peacemakers," who try to find some compromise between the two.

Common sense favors the Grippers. Just about any yoga student can tell you that bending backward can cause a painful pinching sensation at the base of the spine, and that tightening the buttocks often takes that pain away very quickly. Usually, the more you tighten, the less your back hurts and the deeper you can move into the pose. This works in almost any backbend.

Case closed, it would seem: You should obviously contract your gluteal muscles in backbends, right? Not according to hard-core Soft Pedalers, who insist that you must never engage your buttocks while bending backward. But how could anyone even think such a thing when your direct experience so clearly tells you otherwise? What sort of incense have they been burning? It would be easy to dismiss those teachers out of hand—except that many of them are crazy-good backbenders, and their gluteus maximus muscles are perfectly soft and relaxed even when they are deep in the throes of a crazy-good backbend. So who's right?

The answer is: It depends. People who have tight hip flexors (the muscles that pull the thighs toward the chest) can benefit from contracting their gluteals in a backbend, if they do it the right way. Those with loose hip flexors are usually better off keeping their glutes relaxed.

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