Yes the pancake bum is a thing, its not just your imagination!
Pregnancy has a huge effect on your derrière. As your centre of gravity shifts, your body makes adjustments to counterbalance this - bum tucking and bum clenching become the norm.
After 9 months these bad postures become habit, especially as you’re now carrying your baby around for long periods mimicking your pregnancy posture.
Flaunting a pancake bum isn’t just a cosmetic issue:
Lengthly periods of bum clenching tires out your glutes, weakens them and makes your hip flexors take up the slack: your hip flexors get super tight and painful and your glutes get weaker and sloppier.
It also has huge implications on your pelvic floor: clenched glutes mean a clenched pelvic floor.
If your pelvic floor is in this short tightened position it’s less effective at dealing with sudden stresses such as a sneeze, a laugh or lunging forwards quickly to grab your toddler - this makes leaking and prolapse all the more likely.
Avoid these complications and help build your booty back to its former self with these easy tips:
Work on tilting your pelvis slightly forward in to neutral alignment (Ribs stacked over hips)
Stretch out tight hip flexors: balance in your body is essential for muscles to activate and function efficiently.
Lengthen your glutes as much as you can in a squat, remember not to tuck your bum under. A muscle needs to lengthen fully to enable it to contact fully.
Get moving: Being sedentary isn’t helping, walking is a great way to activate sleepy glutes
Isolate to strengthen: You’ll need to isolate the glutes first to ensure they’re firing correctly, remember they’re weak and sleepy and will stay that way until kick started!
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