22-year-old woman says she blamed genetics for having no butt until one walk with slightly bent knees woke up muscles she never used

A 22-year-old woman recently discovered she may have been walking without engaging her glutes for her entire life. Writing on the tifu subreddit, the Redditor, crxwley__, explained, “I also have no a– whatsoever. A fact that I thought just meant that mother nature forgot to bless me in that area.” She noted in her post that both her mother and grandmother were more “boob women” than “butt,” but described herself as “the worst case of the airpod build phenomenon.”

The path to her realization was a suspicion that she might be hypermobile, writing, “Nothing of my body works correctly, but especially not my lower half.” She shared that her knees hyperextend so badly, “my legs look like bananas,” and that she also has a “posterior pelvic tilt.” The Redditor shared that she recently started going to the gym, which made her more aware of how she controls her muscles and, in turn, made her glutes feel sore.

The day before she wrote her post, she went for a long walk and consciously tried not to hyperextend her knees, keeping them bent in a normal posture. “I immediately feel soreness in my thighs and a–,” she wrote, which led her to a “face-palm” moment as she realized the muscles were finally engaging. The Redditor noted, “Of course I have no a–. MY MUSCLES THERE HAVE BEEN PRACTICALLY COMATOSE ALL MY LIFE!”

A realization post that turned into a “public service announcement”

The comments were quickly filled with people sharing similar experiences and realizations, which then led to other commenters sharing that they hadn’t realized their posture or way of sitting was impacting other elements of the body. As one user noted, “I don’t even know how to comprehend what I just read. Just walked across the house while being mindful of my knees and now my hamstrings and glutes hurt. My whole life is a lie.” 

Another user who admitted they just learned how to activate their glutes wrote, “It’s crazy when you hit the right posture and everything just feels… right? And you’re like, wait, should I feel like this *all the time*?” Similarly, a Redditor wrote, “I have hypermobility and chronic pain and only my recent physical therapist has been able to connect the two and then I saw this post and I have never felt so seen.” 

Many others wrote about other places the muscles need to engage. One user shared how they realized chest muscles come into play for push-ups. Another user shared that people also need to consciously do a “controlled glute-squeezy movement,” while “moving from standing to sitting,” instead of flopping.

Eventone Fitness notes that failing to engage the glutes is common in people with hypermobility and that it’s a neurological phenomenon in which the body adapts to joint instability. Since hypermobile joints often sit in positions that mechanically disadvantage the glutes, the nervous system prioritizes other muscles to provide stability. 

This reportedly leads to compensatory patterns where the hamstrings, lower back, or hip flexors take over, which often leads to chronic pain. Eventone Fitness notes that simply getting stronger is not enough, as the brain needs to be retrained to prioritize gluteal recruitment during everyday tasks.

One commenter told the original poster that her post was the opposite of a f–k up. They wrote, “After reading the comments it looks like your post is helping a lot of people realize they have the same issue, so double win. This isn’t a FU, it’s a public service announcement.”