Anterior pelvic tilt (and other pelvis misalignments)

[Toni]

Does anyone else suffer from this? It is a common problem today due to the fact that we sit a lot. This can cause problems in the lower back region. I have only discovered I have this problem recently, although now I know I have had it for years, and maybe it is causing my tinnitus. I have done some research and fortunately there are good resources on the internet about how to fix this.

 

What they say is you should stretch your hip flexors and adductors, together with your lumbar spine, while strengthening the core, the abs and the glutes. Right now I am focusing on exercises to balance my hips again. Let's see if I can improve at my 35 years old.

 

Edit: Here you have some good links about how to fix this:

 

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/hips_dont_lie_fixing_your_force_couples

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by Toni

[EmeraldHead]

Me and it's ruining my life fuck. Athlean X has some cool exercises for "back pain". Some of them help a lot.

[Toni]

22 minutes ago, EmeraldHead said:

Me and it's ruining my life fuck. Athlean X has some cool exercises for "back pain". Some of them help a lot.

I have edited the original post with some good links, you may want to check them ;). They are quite helpful

 

To maintain healthy and flexible hips is crucial

Edited September 16, 2020 by Toni

[EmeraldHead]

3 hours ago, Toni said:

I have edited the original post with some good links, you may want to check them ;). They are quite helpful

 

To maintain healthy and flexible hips is crucial

thanks.

 

bloody hell "computer guy"

[Toni]

oh yes, incel nerd guy with anterior pelvic tilt. Hell in earth

[EmeraldHead]

11 minutes ago, Toni said:

oh yes, incel nerd guy with anterior pelvic tilt. Hell in earth

does that even happen? all the incel looking dudes I see are usually fat and play guitar. You see them sitting everywhere, wheater they are on TV or youtube lol

 

I was thinking more in IT lots of people sit down a loooot, even if they work out. Unless of course they're software developers and only pretend to be part of the IT crowd haha

 

so the fat incels aren't complaying about eye strain from playing video games all day or back pain but working in IT I know lots of people struggle to stay on the PC all day or sit in a chair

[z00se]

It is a very common problem, i see it in clinic every day. I treat alot of professional drivers and it is rife amongst these.

 

You can improve anterior pelvic tilt doing exactley as you say. It takes time (1-3 months) depending on how long it's been a problem for. Do the exercises every 2 days first, if no aggrivation or pain do every day for another week, then do 2-3x a day if you can handle it.

 

Don't always try to get perfect tilt it's not always necassary and perhaps your bone structure has adapted to your anterior pelvic tilt and so the lordosis or excessive curve in the lower spine, the vertebra may have adjusted to that. If you change it back to perfect alignment quickly it could cause more problems.. Often only need partial improvement to get rid of symptoms.

[Toni]

42 minutes ago, z00se said:

It is a very common problem, i see it in clinic every day. I treat alot of professional drivers and it is rife amongst these.

 

You can improve anterior pelvic tilt doing exactley as you say. It takes time (1-3 months) depending on how long it's been a problem for. Do the exercises every 2 days first, if no aggrivation or pain do every day for another week, then do 2-3x a day if you can handle it.

 

Don't always try to get perfect tilt it's not always necassary and perhaps your bone structure has adapted to your anterior pelvic tilt and so the lordosis or excessive curve in the lower spine, the vertebra may have adjusted to that. If you change it back to perfect alignment quickly it could cause more problems.. Often only need partial improvement to get rid of symptoms.

Thanks for your response. People who have anterior pelvic tilt sometimes have other problems in the pelvis too, like lateral pelvic tilt, hip pain or a rotated pelvis. What do you think is the most important for fixing this? Do you think it is more important to stretch the tight muscles or to strengthen the core? Your experience as a doctor can help us a lot

Edited September 17, 2020 by Toni

[z00se]

1 hour ago, Toni said:

Thanks for your response. People who have anterior pelvic tilt sometimes have other problems in the pelvis too, like lateral pelvic tilt, hip pain or a rotated pelvis. What do you think is the most important for fixing this? Do you think it is more important to stretch the tight muscles or to strengthen the core? Your experience as a doctor can help us a lot

 

I would say 95% of people have some sort of alignment issue whether if they have any symptoms or not. The body is constantly in a state of flow and so the pelvis changes it alignment when there is an injury or even just exhaustion so that your body can keep doing the things you ask it to do without you experiencing any symptoms. Each time it gets tired or injured it compensates and becomes more twisted without you knowing. It's only once your body has twisted it's self several times that the healing ability of the body becomes reduced and it can't compensated any more then your body lets you know about the problem via pain. This is when i start to untwist everything and get everything straight and allow the body to heal much faster. The problem is compounded the more active they are or if they are overweight. I believe it usually starts off due to nervous system or repetitive tasks (ie sitting), then after time muscles become longer/shorter holding the misalignment more strongly, then the bone structure adapts and it becomes even more deeply engrained.

 

Frequently i find that pelvis alignment issues can be corrected through correction of the tissues of the neck and jaw. Other people i correct through the pelvis, it depends on where the nerve which is telling the muscle to contract is being unintentionally activated from. This is how i treat, through the nervous system. A physio would (i expect) treat the pelvis by doing stretches with the pelvis, so each modality has their own way of correcting some type of dysfunction. There are many ways to skin a cat so they say.

 

However to answer your question, unless you have alot of training and experience the easiest way is to just focus on the problem part and stretch it more and more frequently (just slowly at the beginning so you dont hurt yourself), even so much as to stretch the problem muscle 1x ever hour. Then it doesn't matter about the caught nerve (the nerve that i work to turn off) or whatever because you are correcting the problematic tissue that is giving you your symptoms.

 

I think the number 1 important muscle to stretch is psoas muscle - both sides (this is the best method if you don't know what you are doing). Strengthening can be important but if you strengthen the other side you will be tight both sides and that will cause other problems. Just stretch the tight muscle. Once alignment corrected and pain is gone if you wish to further improve resistance to reinjury strengthen both sides but continue to stretch both sides.

[z00se]

I just read more deeply into your first post. What he says it right at the start. Later in his post i disagree.

 

I don't think you should plank and make your butt cheeks tight. I think the goal of planking is to relax all the outside muscles and just use the deep inside muscles. Otherwise you train yourself to use the outside muscles and that is the cause of many problems. Relax your butt cheeks, relax your stomach and abs, relax all the muscles on the outside and let your body 'fall' into the correct alignment.

 

Anyone who has spent a bit of time doing 'embracing the tree' while in horsestance will know the feeling of relaxing into good posture.

[Toni]

I am surprised that you say that correcting the neck and jaw can fix pelvis issues. This reminds me somehow of Alexander technique. Is it possible to do this at home via exercises? What are the nerves usually involved in this kind of problems?

 

Also I see you say stretching is more important that strengthening. I have some pain in left adductor and left piriformis, i guess i should stretch them more

Edited September 17, 2020 by Toni

[z00se]

Yes alexander technique is good (i have only read the book). a GOOD bowen therapist can fix this for you without you knowing how to do it.

It will take ages to be able to do it and alot of effort. I meditated for around 16 years and i still can't do it as well as somebody else doing it for me through Bowen treatment. I wouldn't bother trying to do it yourself, no point trying to cut your lawn using a pair of scissors, just pull out the lawn mower.

 

You can stretch adductor and piriformis but do psoas as #1 most important, if you get time do the others. Psoas will be the root of the problem (coccyx too but access that through psoas). It will take some time to filter down to the other muscles but psoas is most often the deeper problem. Don't just do the sore side do both sides for the same amount of time.

 

Other things is look up 'stalk test' to test strength of glute med, sometimes your pelvis will be tilting because psoas is tight because it is compensating for a weak glute med. You can get someone to test hamstring and glute max strength and strengthen accordingly but we are just making a bigger and bigger problem.

 

#1 stretch psoas lots

#2 try get 8,000 - 10,000 steps a day

concentrate on this for 4 weeks and that will fix most of the problems most of the time

if improving continue. If not working start to look at other stuff. If gets sore during 1st month stop, rest until it feels good again, then start #1 & #2 again

 

Other stuff will speed up the healing but you need to have the skill to diagnose the problem. If you don't know what your doing and just do exercises willy nilly it's like going into a pharmacy and eating any pill of the shelf and hoping it's going to work.

 

If you are interested in reading more look up 'dural drag'  that is interesting but very hard to do on yourself, even when you know what you are doing. It's taken me 5 years of 30-50 treatments a week to hone the sensitivity of my fingers to track where the problem is coming from. I thought i knew what i was doing the first year but i didn't have a clue haha. Try step #1 and #2 above, simple but effective.  If not find a good therapist.

[Sketch]

 

38 minutes ago, z00se said:

Yes alexander technique is good (i have only read the book)

Four years working with an Alexander Technique teacher here, and it was an excellent experience that set up a lot of the foundation and understanding for my current practice. The more short term goals of improving my alignments and body usage mechanics were almost a side effect of the perspective changes I went through as a result of the sessions.

 

 

An idea in Alexander Technique is that correct head alignment and the hip angle will follow this correction.

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by Sketch

[Toni]

3 minutes ago, Sketch said:

 

Four years working with an Alexander Technique teacher here, and it was an excellent experience that set up a lot of the foundation and understanding for my current practice. The more short term goals of improving my alignments and body usage mechanics were almost a side effect of the perspective changes I went through as a result of the sessions.

 

 

 

 

Can you explain more? Some time ago i thought about getting Alexander technique classes

[Sketch]

I worked one on one with an instrutor at their location, generally bi weekly. Mostly standing adjustment, gentle taps and pushes from the instructor to suggest where I might redistrubute my stuff.

 

Some table work, some chair work. Some walking. After a while, I started to bring my musical instrument, as well as simulating postural situations such as reaching over a mixing board, reaching for objects, practical stuff.

 

You quickly start working with "internal forces"  and "nameless techniques". 

 

Years later, I was able to work with a voice coach who had also worked with an Alexander Technique Instructor, which made those voice sessions quick and full of that wordless communication of technique. Almost like a shared language of touch.

 

 

[Toni]

Internal forces and nameless techniques, sounds cool.

 

I guess it can help with zhan zhuang then

Edited September 17, 2020 by Toni

[Sketch]

It lays an excellent foundation for a Zhan Zhuang practice.

[Toni]

7 minutes ago, Sketch said:

It lays an excellent foundation for a Zhan Zhuang practice.

can you perhaps explain something about these internal forces and nameless techniques? just to have a general idea about Alexander teachings

[Sketch]

Gravity, a light tap on the shoulder to show you where you are holding tension.

[Gerard]

Asian squat abs bringing the Qi down will fix it but it's a very long road to recovery. Take it as a brushing your teeth type of routine. Every day. Squat as often as you like and slowly go down progressively. Use kettlebells for assistance if you can't do it only with your body weight. Work yourself progressively using a heavier weight down in smaller increments; eg. 12kg-10-8-6-4-2-1kg and at one point you'll manage to squat down without added resistance.

 

YT hosts many videos about various drills and also tips about the Asian squat. Starting with the Pole Squat first is highly recommended as you'll be very tight. Many meridians cross the entire pelvic area as well as the inner and outer thighs. They are all blocked or sluggish and you need to open them up. IMA is also very useful at this and also highly recommended.

 

He Jinghan has plenty of advice on this subject. He has his own dedicated channel.

 

Good luck! 

Edited September 18, 2020 by Gerard

[Toni]

8 hours ago, Gerard said:

Asian squat abs bringing the Qi down will fix it but it's a very long road to recovery. Take it as a brushing your teeth type of routine. Every day. Squat as often as you like and slowly go down progressively. Use kettlebells for assistance if you can't do it only with your body weight. Work yourself progressively using a heavier weight down in smaller increments; eg. 12kg-10-8-6-4-2-1kg and at one point you'll manage to squat down without added resistance.

 

YT hosts many videos about various drills and also tips about the Asian squat. Starting with the Pole Squat first is highly recommended as you'll be very tight. Many meridians cross the entire pelvic area as well as the inner and outer thighs. They are all blocked or sluggish and you need to open them up. IMA is also very useful at this and also highly recommended.

 

He Jinghan has plenty of advice on this subject. He has his own dedicated channel.

 

Good luck! 

Can you share some links? and what is IMA @Gerard ?

Edited September 18, 2020 by Toni

[Gerard]

1. Internal Martial Arts. The big three are the Chinese Bagua Quan. Tai Chi Quan & Xingyi Quan.

 

 

2. Assisted Asian Squat/Pole Squat:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9eiZwoGjmI

 

 

3. Asian Squat/Bodyweight Squat:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTZjD3tEEs

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8GT128He-g

 

 

4. He Jinghan. One of his videos related to what I said about inner thighs and the importance of opening those meridians. One of his many drills:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gzQHDRU3E8

 

 

 

[Toni]

yes, asian squats is something I have trained quite a lot. I have done many zhi neng wall squats. They are very useful but right now I feel I can't go beyond a certain level with them. Maybe I should have persisted more with tai chi, but my posture problems are still with me, even though I have trained hard in tai chi and qi gong.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Toni

[Gerard]

Neither of those two are good at removing deep blockages.

 

Bagua certainly is due to its nature, the forces it generates, what it releases and its constantly balancing effect (Yin-Yang equally). But you can't train it, only a bit every day. Supplemented with seated meditation of course.

 

 

[Toni]

Tai chi is not good for removing blockages and bagua is better? Is that true?? I think this shoulder be explained more in detail

 

And why do u say u can't train bagua, only a bit?

Edited September 22, 2020 by Toni