Do you find your butt slowly disappearing or migrating south? Are your jeans sliding off your butt?
Age-related muscle loss, known as sarcopenia, is a real thing. The good news is you can do targeted workouts to minimize the loss that people experience from increasing age and all the excessive sitting that’s been happening recently.
It’s not too late to literally perk things up.
Round perky butts play a role in aesthetics but there’s even more that’s important!
Having strong gluteal muscles gives you the power to stand up, sit down, squat, and perform all your life activities with power and grace.
Strong glutes are important for proper pelvic alignment, propulsion during walking and running, and single-leg balance support. They also help to support the lower back during lifting motions.
6 Benefits of taking the Active Aging Bootie Barre class
Strong glutes help your posture and lessen back and neck pain.
Increased sitting can result in slumped posture and “dead butt syndrome”. This is when your butt muscles become inhibited and literally forget how to fire.
How does this happen? It’s actually a common problem today. People are spending inordinate amounts of time sitting behind their computers, zooming, etc. Picture it, your butt is tucked under, your back is in a C curve (I call it cashew posture) and your head is shifted forward in front of your shoulders. Feeling the back and neck pain yet? With all this faulty sitting, the muscles in the front of your hip joints become short and tight and the opposite muscles, the butt muscles, become neurologically inhibited, overstretched, weak, and inactive. Strengthening the butt muscles, back muscles and stretching the muscles in front of the hip, exercises that are included in the active aging bootie barre class, address these common issues.
Strong Glutes help Prevent Injuries.
Building strong gluteal muscles (the focus of “bootie barre”) can help you avoid injury as well as recover from injury to your low back, hips, knees, and ankles by creating better alignment and stability. As an example, when squatting sometimes people will cave one knee in towards midline instead of tracking the knee over the foot. That’s often a result of weak gluteal muscles on that side. This is a common dysfunctional pattern known as “dynamic valgus” and it can be prevented with strong gluteal and hip muscles. Proper hip, knee, foot alignment is cued regularly during our bootie barre class.
Strong Glutes Improve Balance
Who remembers those old commercials “Help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” Though people joked about it, those commercials depicted a real and serious situation. Maybe it’s not an issue for you currently but having strong glutes now means you’ll have a strong foundation to propel yourself when walking, have the stability in your pelvis to balance on one leg, get in and out of your vehicle, or shower with ease and if you fall, “you Will be able to get up”! This all translates to better long-term quality of life.
Strong Glutes Enhance Bone Density in the Hips and Pelvis
Strength training is the best way to improve localized bone density. This happens when muscle tissue tugs on your bones during strength training. By building up the muscles around your pelvis (your glutes) as we do in class, you are improving your muscle and bone strength as well as the stability of your entire pelvis and hips.
Strong Gluts are Aesthetically Appealing
Though not the most important reason, this is often the primary reason people start working on their glutes. It’s a valid goal to have to keep our pants from sliding down and if chasing a perky butt is your goal, I say go for it!
This class is targeted for you, in the last and best third of your life, to get strong safely and efficiently.
As a physical therapist, I ensure that you’re not using your low back to lift your leg behind you (a common error). I design exercises that work all ranges of motion of the hip and stimulate both slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers found in your glutes. And, we get it all done in just 30 time-efficient minutes! Allow me to be your guide to lift your tush and safely challenge your limits.
Sign up for the Active Aging Bootie Barre Class every Wednesday at 11:30 PM PST. Can’t make that time? Not a problem. You can purchase the class and I can send you a recording to do at your convenience!
Click here for a preview of some Active Aging Bootie Barre Moves!


Written by Teresa Maldonado Marchok, MPT
Physical Therapist, Pilates Teacher, Aging Strong Activist, Educator, and lifelong learner. www.BoneSmartPilates.com
References
BoneSmart Pilates Youtube channel Gluteal Amnesia aka Dead Butt Syndrome https://youtu.be/YevqgbmS4K8
Buckthorpe M, Stride M, Villa FD. ASSESSING AND TREATING GLUTEUS MAXIMUS WEAKNESS — A CLINICAL COMMENTARY. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2019;14(4):655–669.
Dunsky A. The Effect of Balance and Coordination Exercises on Quality of Life in Older Adults: A Mini-Review. Front Aging Neurosci. 2019;11:318. Published 2019 Nov 15. doi:10.3389/fnagi.2019.00318