Big Butt: The Trend, Benefits and Lower Back Pain

Anatomy of the Buttock and Low Back Pain

The butt consists of three muscles ― gluteus maximus (largest), gluteus medius (located at the mid part of the buttock), and gluteus minimus (located towards the hip region).

These muscles synergize to control the legs movements. Aside from that, they also contribute to the knee and pelvis stability.

Big butt places more stress on these muscles and over time, they may become weak. Sometimes they might be underperforming due to some pathology in the innervating nerves.

To compensate for the weakness in the activities of the gluteus muscles, the hip flexor muscles steps in to assist. The hip flexors are muscles located at the front (anterior) part of the thigh.

As much as this may sound physiological (normal) enough, it exposes the lower part of the body to some risks. For instance, the tightening of the muscles creates an unhealthy curve at the lower back region called lordosis or swayback. This may cause some damages in the discs in-between the sacral and lumbar vertebra.

Since there is malformation in the morphology of the discs, they tend to touch the sciatic nerve resulting in sciatic nerve pain.

The Piriformis muscle is may also be affected by the frequent swaying of the buttock. This muscle connects the sacrum and the hip bone. When it is unnecessary stretched, it affects the sciatic nerve thereby presenting pain, and sometimes numbness in the buttock.

Women with big butts are most likely to experience a problem with the piriformis while females, in general, are 6 times more prone compared to men.

Conclusion: Should Women Enhance Their Butt?

The decision of augmenting the butts or not is individuals’. However, a careful analysis of the butt trends from the 1920s till date reveals it has always been changing. Enhancing the butt via physical exercises is okay as the butt muscles would have been trained to withstand the new buttock shape.

Female self-confidence and realization of their own natural beauty trump any endeavor to get a bigger butt that may at the end of the day cause low back pain.

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