
The gorgeous strength of Gluteus Maximus, Medius and Minimus.
The science of health and fitness should always be your lifelong guide.
Fitness is as wonderful for your health as it is for landing you a more sculpted and capable body over time.
But that will never change that even fit people (quite a lot of them) are doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Case in point the fit and good looking girl you can see in the IG video I am linking to, she obviously trains hard and regular while being in great shape, and she does know quite a few things about the body and the science of staying healthy and fit.
Which is wonderful on all counts.
But like so many other gym goers she is seemingly misinformed about a few things too ( on the other hand, so are we all :P ). Allowing wrongful information and knowledge to shape her choices and the choices of other people that gulps up everything we fit people believe to be true. However, if you are willing to listen to it the beautiful science of health and fitness will guide you towards a better body and better health and better workouts if you pay attention to real fitness science instead of personal opinions. You see, there is nothing wrong with the exercises she is doing. But outside of the wonderful world of human anatomy, there is no such thing as an upper or lower butt muscle as far as your exterior appearance goes, nor is there a meaningful difference as far as your practical fitness capacity and workout goes.
Click through and let us talk about Gluteus Maximus, Medius and Minimus.
The Gluteus maximus is the big ass muscle which gave that girl her firm looking ass, and there is no way to just work it's upper or lower part.
You either activate it or you don't.
Now, the degree with which you will manage to activate your gluteus and every other muscle can obviously differ depending on both the weight you use, the muscle contact and the range of motion, angles, and direction of your movement as well as your choice of exercise. But it's still the same gluteus muscle being worked. All you can do if you are truly into nerd geek muscle-fitness territory is to opt for a minor change in regards to which area of the muscles length which will get activated a bit more, while the rest of the muscle will get activated slightly less depending on your range of motion and movement, like we discussed in our quadriceps range of motion article recently here at 'norse view' ( a Norse View, Quadriceps and range of motion. )
2050AD, the ugliness of humanity.
[ Oceans run the risk of having more total weight of plastic than fish.]

The anatomy and fitness function of our gorgeous Gluteus.
Outside of the gluteus maximus we also have the gluteus medius and minimus, and all combined these three muscles form our beloved ass, the shape, strength, and function of it.
Gluteus medius and minimus are both activated ( mostly ) when you do one legged exercises or move the force of your movement in various degrees in or out, lateral and circular speaking. And like their big brother gluteus maximus, they also stabilize our important hip joint. So, our two smaller gluteus muscles do play an important functional role, and that is why you should include both in your fitness regime, but as far as your exterior butt appearance goes their importance is very minor.
All while the biggest gluteus muscle, which also happens to be our strongest and biggest muscle on the entire body, the Gluteus Maximus is the main driver as soon as you bend your legs and extend your hips, making it involved in pretty much every single fitness activity you can imagine if you somehow make use of your lower body at all. Lateral or posterior, or anterior movement doesn't matter, neither does it matter if you are moving things vertically up or down, in a straight line or circular, bilateral or unilateral.
If you are activating your lower body and hips in any shape and form, gluteus maximus will be there asserting its power and function.
Providing more strength and stabilization than any other muscle, which is why everyone should work their lower body and gluteus consistently and seriously. The health and capacity of our gluteus is just that important for your general health and fitness capacity.
Our three Gluteus muscles all originate from our hip/pelvic bone ( ilium and sacrum ), and they attach to the biggest bone in the human body, the femur.
A strong and fit set of Gluteus muscles is however not just about movement in your hip and lower body, strong and capable gluteus muscles which can work with stability and strength through their entire range of motion will greatly aid your lower back. Just as how they work together with a lot of other muscles, such as the rarely talked about Tensor fasciae latae muscle.
So, by all means, find workout inspiration in this fit girl
(
Upperbooty IG fitness video. )
and every other fitness profile out there, after all, anyone that gets you to move about more on a daily basis, lifting weights in the gym, doing fitness and keeping sweaty and active, and hopefully paying more attention to your food as well, is doing you a lifelong favor.
And that is obviously something truly wonderful.
Just do it knowing full well that gluteus maximus is one complete muscle and that there is no such thing as an upper or lower gluteus maximus, with the minor caveat that you can alter the muscle activation ever so slightly by targeting different range of motions, but that has drawbacks too and its still the same muscle. And this simple, practical reality is why fitness and science and health is a holy trinity free from personal opinions :).
Now, if I would guess why some fitness people might talk about an upper or lower booty, it might be due to how our three gluteus muscles are aligned relative to each other, the minimus is positioned beneath ( inferior ) relative to the gluteus medius, hence it is possible that some think of it as a lower or upper gluteus muscle.
Which it is, if we are talking about human anatomy.
But that relative position to each other does not change the shape and form and capacity of your gluteus, nor does it change the simple fact that if you are working your medius, you are without a doubt going to activate your minimus too ( and most likely your gluteus maximus ) and that is a good thing because neither of them is designed to work entirely on their own, they are all part of a much larger and healthy chain that is meant to work together. As such, design your fitness workouts around complete gluteus activation and worry less about which of the three gluteus muscles you might activate because it just isn't productive or meaningful to try and separate medius from minimus when it comes down to the task of creating meaningful fitness workouts.
About my photos.
As long as we still have a functional world, I´ll be out there, grinding it out in the gym, lifting heavy weights in a properly scientific way. Training myself and others. Eating healthy vegetarian food and enjoying nature and wildlife, while I marvel at the beauty of Scandinavia and "höga kusten" right here in Sweden as I produce gorgeous Nordic fine art products, complete with our ancient Viking soul and Scandinavian natures uniquely calm and quiet wild charm.
You can buy my fine art for your own home over at printler.com. And the link is located down below.
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