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The gluteus medius is an important posture muscle. This muscle lies under the gluteus maximus, and over the gluteus minimus. Gluteus medius trigger points can cause pain in your buttock and the back of your upper thigh.
You use this muscle for walking, standing, running. When it contracts, it will pull your leg away from the midline of your body. It’s an important stabiliser, and is used constantly throughout the day as you move around.
The trigger points are found in the top of the muscle. It’s a fan-shaped muscle, and the triggers are found near where it inserts into the iliac crest of the pelvis in a broad attachment.
To get to the muscle, you need to push down past the gluteus maximus. This means that when you do treat the gluteus medius, your leg needs to be very relaxed so the overlying maximus muscle is not active.
The middle gluteus medius trigger point causes pain deep in the buttock, radiating down into the top of the thigh. The other two radiate pain into the middle of the buttock, and the lower back.
Because they’re not exactly where you feel pain, these triggers are sometimes missed as a cause of lower back and upper thigh pain.
The gluteus medius is a deep muscle, and can be hard to reach when you treat yourself. Because of this, we recommend you use a tool like a Theracane of Back Knobber to reach this muscle.
The preferred position when you do this is lying on your back, and levering the Theracane off the floor to create just the right amount of pressure.
You can use the Theracane to create an ischemic pressure release. This technique can be applied whether you use your fingers or a trigger point release tool, and it’s very effective, even for deep muscles like the gluteus medius.
Because the gluteus medius has a broad insertion into the iliac crest, you need to do two different stretches. The first one stretches the back of the muscle, and the other one stretches the front section.
It’s always recommended to stretch after releasing a trigger point, to return the muscle to its natural length, and to make the treatment last longer.
Here’s where to get a free starter course on treating trigger points safely and effectively.