Looking to relieve some pain in your butt area? There are plenty of ways to relieve that pain, from stretching out your muscles to taking painkillers. But what about a bum massage? Most massages are carried out on other parts of your body but you will also find ones available for your bum that relieve pain in the same way. That’s why in this article we’ve come up with the 4 best bum massage benefits to let you know why you should get one to relieve your pain.
What is a Bum Massage?
Bum massages will usually need to be specially requested from your massage therapist
A bum massage, also known as a glute massage or butt massage offers a massage therapy experience that focuses on the gluteus muscles. These 3 muscles are the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus.Massage therapists will use Swedish massage, deep tissue massage and sports massage techniques to treat your gluteus muscles for pain, tightness or injuries. This includes kneading, compression, deep stroking and trigger pointing to stimulate the muscles.
What are the Gluteus Muscles?
Gluteus Maximus
The process of standing back up after bending down is controlled by the gluteus maximus
After the quadriceps, these are the second largest muscles in the entire body. They are the outermost muscles in our bum area, being wide and thick. This muscle is larger in us humans than in other primates, and is one of the most defining muscular features that makes us unique from the rest.
The gluteus maximus muscles are the most important muscles in our body in keeping our posture upright. When this muscle extends, it brings our legs into line with our body. This function can also bring our back up and in line with our legs. Effectively, the gluteus maximus controls our upright posture, brings us back up after bending down, and helps our leg movement.
Gluteus Medius
The 3 glute muscles work together to move your lower body
Located in the upper area of the buttocks and covered mostly by the gluteus maximus, this muscle controls excessive movement and stabilises your lower back. During everyday activities like walking and running, the gluteus medius keeps the hips level and stable. When they are weak, the side of our body with the leg off the ground will droop down until it comes back into contact with the ground. Weakness in these muscles can also cause or worsen existing lower back pain whilst standing.
Gluteus Minora
The final and smallest of the three gluteal muscles, the gluteus minora is found directly underneath the gluteus medius. These muscles again act as a stabiliser, but also allow the hip to rotate and let your legs swing from side to side. Weakness or injuries like tears to this muscle can make walking and general exercise painful. Trigger point pain from this muscle can also extend from the end of the spine down towards the ankle.
What are the bum massage benefits?
Reduced lower back pain and hip pain
Massaging the bum helps relieve lower back pain
The first bum massage benefit is the relief of pressure from the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve is a long and thick nerve located in the lower spine. It runs behind the gluteus maximus, through the thigh and ends at the foot. Inflammation in your gluteus muscles can irritate and compress the nerve, sending pain signals to your brain and in some cases causing sciatica.
Massaging tight muscles in your glute area can help reduce the pain you experience in the hips due to the extra pressure put onto them. Relief from hip pain is felt even more when you also suffer from arthritis. Combined with using a foam roller to against trigger points, pain and tension in your lower body is reduced after a bum massage.
Reduced leg pain
The next bum massage benefit is that it reduces leg pain. Tight glutes can cause your leg muscles to overwork themselves, making them stiff and sore. The gluteus muscles help with the movement of your legs in swinging them both front to back and side to side. When they become inflamed or tight, your leg muscles have to compensate in order to continue moving as normal.
This can overwork the muscles in your legs, causing delayed onset muscle soreness, inflammation and increasing the risk of injury. By massaging and releasing the tension in your glutes, you will take stress away from your leg muscles. This will allow them to recover from the overload of work and reduce any pain you have had as a side effect of strained glutes.
Increased range of movement
Get back to doing the activities you enjoy with better flexibility and movement
By reducing tightness and stretching out your muscles, a bum massage can help treat immobility in your lower back, hip and legs. Solving muscle tightness in your bum area frees movement in your legs because they control the forwards, backwards and side to side movement.
The manual expansion and contraction of your muscles, along with the increase in temperature that comes with it, improves your elasticity of muscles and flexibility of joints. Improving the flexibility of your muscles in this area will reduce the chances of injury, especially during exercise or sudden movements. The end result is that you can get back to feeling your best during everyday activities, sports or exercise.
Increased blood circulation
Circulation improvement from massages will help you recover and make you feel refreshed
Your blood circulation improves from inflamed muscles being stretched out and returned to their normal shape. When the muscles stay inflamed, muscles will push up against blood vessels and constrict them, reducing the blood flow through them. By freeing up your blood flow to the buttocks area, your tight muscles will recover better.
Blood is also forced into the area with the massaging strokes of your massage therapist. By bringing large amounts of blood to the treated area, nutrients like oxygen will help your muscle to heal from injuries. Deep tissue massage techniques used in a bum massage can also cause micro-tears in your muscles, which need the nutrients carried by your blood to heal and become stronger.
Go And Get Your Bum Massage Today!
Now that you know about all the bum massage benefits, it’s time for you to go and get one. At OSIM UK, we offer a range of massage machines that give you the bum massage you’ve been looking for. And better yet, you won’t even need to leave your home or make an appointment to get one. Head over today and get some much needed pain relief!
