Anterior Pelvic Tilt Stretches

Below is one of many schemes which can tackle APN – anterior pelvic tilt. But if you understand the rationale behind it you can choose whichever exersices you like to get rid of anterior pelvic tilt which is really a bad way to use your body.

Symptoms/causes of anterior pelvic tilt.

One of the main contributing causes is likely prolonged sitting that can shorten the hip flexor muscles. They are psoas muscle and rectus femoris.

Whichever the real cause (sitting or some other bad postural habit) one ends up with such muscle conditions:

1. Tight (shortened) hip flexors which pull the vertebrae column forward.
2. Tight (shortened) lower back muscles (erector spinae). Because the vertbrae column needs to be extended backward to maintain balance.
3. Weak (lengthened) abdominals. Inhibited by lower back muscles.
4. Weak (lengthened) glutes (inhibited by psoas) and hamstrings (inhibited by rectus femoris).


Image courtesy of: bsmitley

To tackle this muscle imbalance one needs to stretch overly tight muscles and diminish excessive tension in them first and to bring tonus to weak and lengthened muscles second. And not vice versa.

Anterior Pelvic Stretches Video

This video demonstrates a very good combination of stretches which solve the issue with tight and shortened muscles.

What is left behind is tonicising inhibited muscles. The first important muscle group to bring tonus to is glutes.*

Moreover, only after stretching antagonists (psoas) glutes stop to be inhibited and can be engaged and exercised. This concept is important and explains why people can’t exercise glutes effectively without solving first psoas puzzle.

What about abdominals? Having done what is described above often naturally brings abdominals into tonus because it is not lengthened and inhibited anymore. However, one can add a plank to this exercise routine to work with abdominals also.

* The best way to unleash the power of your glutes is doing squats and, even better, deadlifts. CONs – one has to use a proper technique. Done improperly these seemingly simple exercises will do more harm then good.

Here are important cues to do it properly.

How to do a perfect deadlift.

Understanding and Implementing Proper Squatting While Lifting Things.

Further Reading About Glutes

only for those who want to dig deeper. The truth is that what is written above is enough for understanding and designing a basic exercise routine in 85% of cases. More information is not always better.

glutes-book

The Vital Glutes: Connecting the Gait Cycle to Pain and Dysfunction

What is good about this book that it is written by John Gibbons – who specialises in the assessment, treatment and rehabilitation of sport-related injuries. His experience in physical therapy is more than 13 years.

He starts his book from a case study where a gluteus maximus weakness caused pain in a trapezius muscle. Then he continues with relevant study of functional anatomy of gluteus maximus, its role in stabilizing SIJ (sacro iliac joint), gait cycle, efficient work of the body etc.

The complex view to gluteus maximus in the whole chain of fascia net (thoracolumbar fascia) is presented and explained. This was a key concept, by the way, in explaining why the problem in trapezius could be traced down to the glutes.

Such topics are discussed in the book: posture and postural deviations, tonic and phasic muscles, muscle imbalances, core muscles, gait cycle, pelvic and sacrum motion in it, leg length discrepancy and its connection with pelvic level, iliopsoas, gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, assessment of them, muscle energy techniques, rectus femoris, adductors, knee and ankle pain, lumbar spine pain, stabilization exercises (very thought-provoking list of exercises with EMG testing results – no guesswork), rehabilitation methodology, balancing exercises, exercises with swiss ball, resistance bands, weights etc.

Conclusion: a must-have book for professionals and can be recommended for bodywork enthusiasts.