Tiger Woods' Glutes: Is There Anything to His Comment About Their Deactivating?

When Tiger Woods withdrew partway through his first round at the Farmers Insurance Open, he cited back pain due to gluteal muscles that were "deactivated." He made it sound like they were intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"I was ready to go. I had a good warm-up session the first time around," Woods said after leaving the course. "Then we stood out here, and I got cold—and everything started deactivating again. And it's frustrating that I just can't stay activated."

It seemed like Woods had completely left the planet in terms of making sense. However, we should know by now that, with all of the injuries and rehabilitation Woods has experienced, he has more knowledge on physiology, fitness and rehabilitation than most of us do.

"It just never loosened back up again," he added about his back area. "And when we went back out, it just got progressively tighter."

What sounded like some nonexistent medical excuse was, in fact, something that can happen.

According to Dr. John Rusin, an expert in exercise science and physical therapy, glutes can actually deactivate. And that can lead to pain in more than just the backside. It's one of those "the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone" kind of deals, where having glutes that aren't warmed up can affect the lower back, the legs and more.

According to his website, Rusin has trained top athletes, including Major League Baseball's Mark Prior. He has also published an article called "Top 5 Glute Activation Techniques."

Exercise is required to fix glutes and to keep them ready to go. According to Rusin, the glutes can be activated with many exercises, but he has five favorites: the hip thrust, the jump squat, the standing hip abduction, the reverse hyper-extension and the dynamic dead lift.

The purpose of these exercises is to increase blood flow to the gluteal area. The exercises are supposed to get the body ready to move the way it is supposed to. They keep the glutes from tightening up and causing problems with movement in other parts of the body.

That was what Woods described.

"My glutes are shutting off. Then they don't activate, and then, hence, it goes into my lower back," he said. "So I tried to activate my glutes as best I could, in between, but...they never stayed activated."

ShapeFit.com's Pamela Brown says problems with the glutes can definitely cause pains in other areas of the body. She adds that if you have knee, lower-back, shoulder or groin injuries, you could actually be suffering from a condition known as gluteal amnesia. While you may want to write your own joke for that condition, the glutes are apparently a lot more important than we ever thought.

To wake up your glutes, Brown recommends hip hinges, dead-lift variations, lunge variations and pull-throughs as good exercise choices. She adds that a good balance between strength in the quadriceps and in glutes helps to prevent injury.

Sitting, everyone with knowledge on this subject says, is the worst thing anyone can do.

Kathy Bissell is a Golf Writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand or from official interview materials from the PGA Tour, USGA, R&A or PGA of America.