The Difference Whole Body Fitness Makes

Yesterday, in a comment to my post, Tomas Anthony of Everyday Athlete made a good point about the way our bodies work. It’s advice I wish someone had told me back when I was 22 and sprightly and durable. But I’m not holding a grudge against those good-for-nothing docs who whipped me in and out of their offices faster than you can say malpractice. Really, I’m not.

But, the point. Right. Our bodies aren’t a bunch of independent parts that happen to share a few important organs. It’s more like a string of Christmas lights that works as a whole—and when one light burns out, the entire string is kaput. The next step is infuriating: inspecting the strand one bulb at a time until you discover which shorted out first. You probably have a clue which body part gave up first (for me, the throbbing pain in my knees was a dead giveaway), but finding other culprits is a little trickier.

Here’s something I knew yesterday: My legs always have been weak. As a teen, I rarely (read: never, ever) worked out, so any muscle mass was from general horsing around. Since I started physical therapy—that’s PT to you—I’ve focused on strengthening my quad muscles so they bulge in a Lance Armstrong kind of way. I have special exercises to strengthen my inner and outer thighs, and work my hamstrings every other day.

But I think I’ve neglected my butt.

That’s something I didn’t know yesterday: I have weak gluteus muscles. (That’s a nice, scientific, and much more specific way of talking about the three main muscles that make up your butt and hips, by the way.) According to Tomas, too-weak glutes can force you to overuse your hamstrings and quads, and that affects your entire leg, including a fibrous band of tissue that runs along the outside of the leg known as the iliotibial band or IT band.

According to physical therapist Jennifer Lewis, when your hips and butt muscles are weakened, you put extra strain on muscles that should be secondary. And that can cause your leg to rotate inward, putting too much tension on tendons around the knee and causing a heckuva lot of pain. (OK, she didn’t really say that last part, but I’m 99 percent sure she meant to.) She agrees with Tomas: You need to treat and train your entire body, not just the parts that ache.

All of this exercise talk is getting me excited for the day I get off my (apparently weak) butt and start PT again. I’ve already altered my mindset; instead of thinking solely about my quads (or Lance’s or anyone else’s) I’m going to concentrate on full-body conditioning. That’s a pretty lofty goal considering my recent couch potatodome, but definitely doable.

In the meantime … I’ll give you an exercise if you give me one. Here’s a hamstring strengthener that will have you walking like a cowboy the day after. As for you, what are your best glutes-strengtheing moves?

Hamstring Curls
You’ll need: A jumbo exercise ball
You’ll do: Three sets of 10 on each leg. More if you’re He-Man.

1. Lie with your back on the floor, heels resting on an exercise ball, and legs bent 90 degrees.
2. Raise your left leg into the air, and lift your butt off of the ground so your upper body is in a perfectly straight line.
3. Pull your right leg in toward your body, then roll back to the starting position.
4. Repeat nine more times, then switch legs. Complete 30 pull-ins on each leg.