Upper Buttocks

 

Free muscles of clump-knots

that restrict hip mobility & induce low back tension.

 

Problem:

Deep buttocks muscle fibers just below the top ridge of pelvic bone (below iliac crest), right on the bone where muscle attaches, tend to clump together into knots often the size of marbles. Pressing directly on them with your finger is shockingly painful, and yet, most people don’t know they have this problem. These clump-knots keep butt muscles (gluteus medius) slightly contracted, limiting hip mobility and putting addtional strain or low back.  

 

Treatment:

Clump-knots must be compressed with the flats of fingers or thumbs and moved in whichever direction that releases the most tension. Usually there are several clumps, each needing direct fluidification massage. Pressing, pushing, or grasping and shaking these clumps will usually relax muscle tissues; meaning their cramp-like shapes will release. To a therapist's fingers this feels as if lumpy rocks have suddenly turned into soft muscle. These then take a few days to fully recover, the way a bruise does.

 

Benefits:

  1. loosens & spreads out clump-knots.
  2. reduces resting-tension in buttocks muscles.
  3. increases blood flow through buttocks muscles.
  4. relaxes cell tissues, decreasing regional trauma.
  5. increases buttocks muscle flexibility & mobility.
  6. increases buttocks muscle strength & endurance.
  7. reduces strain on upper condyle of thigh bone.
  8. decreases stress affecting low back.
  9. allows thigh to lift quicker & higher.

 

Notes:

     Clump-knots are like quiet spasms; they generally don’t hurt so much that you notice them, but they restrict movement of the muscle, and thus restrict movement of any muscles near them. When they are loosened & spread back out through deep fluidification massage, not only do buttocks muscles move more freely, but so do low back muscles, as if the trauma present in buttocks muscles was also one of the sources of pain in low back muscles.

     Clump-knots can be treated through repetitive relaxing massage or a series of electrotherapy, which floods the area with blood & relaxes the bulk of clumped tissue, but my experience is that clump-knots always return unless they are thoroughly de-adhered & spread out by a therapist’s hands.