The Gripping Truth

Here's how to avoid tightening the buttocks in backbends, which can lead to compression and pain in the lower back.

By Julie Gudmestad

To grip the buttocks or not to grip the buttocks? That is the question. At least it's the question I hear most often when I teach backbends. Gripping the buttocks in backbends can lead to compression and pain in the lower back, yet you may feel you can barely get your hips off the ground if your buttocks aren't active. What's a student to do?

A better understanding of the movement of the hips in backbends—and of the muscles involved—may help solve the dilemma. In all backbends, you need full extension of your hips. Extension is the position of the hips when you are standing fully upright, and it is the opposite of hip flexion. The hips are flexed to 90 degrees when you sit and more deeply flexed when you pull your knees toward your chest. When you prepare to lift up into a supine (face-up) backbend like Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose) or Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward-Facing Bow Pose), you lie on your back with your hips partially flexed. As you lift your pelvis off the floor, you move into hip extension.

Hip Action
When you have even a little bit of bend at the hips, the tailbone drops down and the back waist lifts up. This position, called "an anterior tilt of the pelvis," creates a sharper bend in the lower back and often causes feelings of compression or pain.

There are two major causes of too much anterior tilt—in other words, lack of full hip extension—in backbends: tight hip flexors and weak or imbalanced hip extensors. If you have tight hip flexors, a very common condition in our sedentary society, it's important to stretch them before backbends by practicing lunges or Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I Pose).

But instead your problem may be partially or completely due to weak or unbalanced hip extensors. There are two primary hip extensor muscles: the gluteus maximus and the hamstrings. The gluteus maximus is the large, potentially powerful muscle that forms the shape of the buttock. It originates on the back of the pelvis and attaches to the outer upper femur (thighbone). The hamstrings, of course, lie on the back of the thigh. They originate on the ischial tuberosities (the sitting bones) and attach just below the knee on the tibia and fibula (the lower leg bones). Both muscles are potentially strong hip extensors, and your neuromuscular computer, otherwise known as your brain, may select one or both to lift your pelvis and open the front of your hips.

The answer to the question about gripping the buttocks lies in balancing these two muscles. If the gluteus maximus is doing too much of the work, you will begin to feel one of its secondary actions, external rotation of the hip and leg. To feel this for yourself, lie down on your stomach and put your left hand on your left buttock. Keeping your knee straight, lift your left leg off the floor (hip extension). Let your left leg externally rotate: Your knee and foot will point outward. The hand on your buttock should detect a strong contraction of the gluteus maximus. If you now try these actions of extension and external rotation with both legs at the same time, you will probably feel that you are "gripping the tailbone" with your buttocks.

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