Does it look like you are deliberately sticking out your posterior when you walk or stand? If so, you might have an anterior pelvic tilt. A pelvic tilt can compromise your posture and affect your range of motion. Fortunately, this issue doesn’t have to be a lifelong problem.
Would you like to know how to fix anterior pelvic tilt? You are in the right place! We are about to share simple exercises for correcting the issue. Before delving into that, let’s clarify what an anterior pelvic tilt is and how to self-diagnose it.
What Is Anterior Pelvic Tilt?
An anterior pelvic tilt occurs when your lower spine curves inward and your posterior juts outward. From the side, a person with an anterior pelvis will have a banana shape with their gut sticking out and their backside pointing the other way.
**Note, anterior pelvic tilt is not a disease, it’s an observed postural position. And it does not necessarily have to correlate with back pain!
The spinal position places unnecessary strain on your spine, leading to tension and pain in your lower back muscles. If you don’t get treatment, the problem may also impede your range of motion.
An anterior pelvis may be due to poor core strength and stability, lack of exercise, and excessive sitting in a hunched position. You can combat the condition by being conscious about standing in a “stacked,” upright position. You can also engage in corrective strengthening and stretching exercises that support stomach muscles and correct anterior pelvic tilt.
How to Tell If You Have Anterior Pelvic Tilt
Two simple ways to self-diagnose an anterior pelvis are checking your posture in the mirror and examining your back muscles. The mirror examination involves checking your reflection from the side. If your chest, gut, and lower back are jutting forward and your backside poking backward in an exaggerated manner, you may have an anterior pelvis.
Alternatively, rub your fingers against your lower back. If the muscles in the right and left sides of your lower back feel like vertical steel pipes separated by a ravine, you may have an anterior pelvis.
The Thomas Test is an easy test to execute which identifies tight hip flexors, often associated with anterior pelvic tilt. It involves laying back on a flat and elevated surface, e.g., a bed. Your knees should be hanging off without your feet touching the ground. Slowly raise one knee to your chest and drop it before doing the same with the other leg.
If your resting leg stays down and against the surface while you raise the other knee, your pelvic alignment is fine. However, if you can’t raise a knee to your chest without rotating your hip or straightening/raising the resting leg, you may have a tilted pelvis.
Do you live near Plymouth, MI, and suspect that you have an anterior pelvis? Are you looking for a chiropractor in Plymouth, MI, who can help? Contact us to schedule an exam!
What Does a Chiropractor Actually Do for Anterior Pelvic Tilt?
The short version: we don’t try to straighten your pelvis. We figure out whether the position is actually a problem, then teach you how to control it.
An anterior pelvic tilt simply describes a position where the front of the pelvis sits lower relative to the back. Plenty of people stand that way and have absolutely no problem because of it.
Where it gets more interesting is when someone relies heavily on low back extension to create stability and has trouble getting out of that position when the task calls for something different.
That’s where our Core ABCs: Alignment, Breathing, and Control come in.
Alignment isn’t about putting your pelvis back where it “belongs.” It’s about being able to find a useful relationship between your rib cage and pelvis without constantly relying on your low back to hold you there.
When someone spends a lot of time using that extension strategy, the muscles along the low back can stay pretty active.
After a while, they can feel like steel pipes.
So What Do We Actually Do?
First, we assess whether the position has anything to do with the problem you’re experiencing.
If muscle tension, stiffness, or sensitivity is making it difficult to move comfortably, hands-on treatment may help create some room to work. That could include manual therapy, joint mobilization or manipulation, or another technique depending on what we find.
But hands-on treatment isn’t automatically Step 1 for everybody.
The bigger goal is teaching you how to find and control positions you currently have trouble accessing.
That often starts with learning what rib cage over pelvis actually feels like. Not because that’s the posture you’re supposed to hold every second of the day, but because it’s difficult to control a position you can’t find in the first place.
From there, we work on breathing and then maintaining that control through different movements, postures, and loads.
Alignment. Breathing. Control.
The goal isn’t better posture for the sake of better posture. It’s giving your body more options.
Is an Anterior Pelvic Tilt Even a Problem?
Sometimes.
Often, no.
Anterior pelvic tilt exists on a spectrum, and plenty of people naturally stand with some degree of it without pain or limitation. A picture of your posture isn’t enough to tell us whether something needs to be “fixed.”
What matters more is what happens when you move and load your body.
Someone may look completely unremarkable standing in front of us, but once they squat, lift, run, or perform another demanding movement, they repeatedly rely on lumbar extension and have difficulty controlling another strategy.
Even then, the position alone isn’t the problem.
It matters when it relates to the thing you’re actually struggling with.
That’s why we test rather than treating posture from a picture.
When It Isn’t the Problem
We see this fairly often.
Someone comes in convinced they have anterior pelvic tilt, and after we assess them, the tilt doesn’t appear to be the source of their back pain at all.
Usually they’ve done what any reasonable person does. Their back hurts, so they search for an explanation. They find anterior pelvic tilt, watch enough videos to recognize themselves in it, and by the time they walk through our door they’ve already made the diagnosis.
That’s okay. We’ll have the conversation, test what actually needs to be tested, and figure out where to go from there.
Sometimes anterior pelvic tilt is relevant. Sometimes it’s just the way you stand.
Finding a video that looks like you isn’t the same as finding the source of your problem.
How to Correct Anterior Pelvic Tilt
The first step in correcting an anterior pelvic tilt is finding your ideal pelvis position. An optimally positioned pelvis will lead to less strain in your lower back muscles.
Find your ideal pelvic position by bending over like you are in a golfing stance. Slowly move your hips forward and backward with your hands on your lower back. When you feel the muscles in your lower back soften, that’s your ideal or neutral position.
Stand up straight and try to maintain the neutral hip position. If you can’t, follow these steps to practice better control of neutral pelvis:
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Lay face down on a comfortable surface, e.g., an exercise mat, carpet.
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Slowly pelvic tilt (think “tucking your tail” or “plumber butt”) to flatten out your backside.
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Hold the position and bend the knee of one leg, slowly moving the heel to your backside without arching the back (this helps you feel how your leg movement influences your pelvic position).
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Put down the lifted leg and repeat the motion with the other leg.
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Focus on breathing from your abdomen during the exercise, and avoid arching your back or lifting the hip of the active leg toward the ceiling; otherwise, you won’t feel how bending the knee wants to pull you into anterior pelvic tilt.
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Watch the video above to get a visual representation of this exercise.
Other exercises that can help correct an anterior pelvis include:
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Squats
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Glute bridge
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Birddog
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Plank
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Active pelvic tilting
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Dying bug
But the above exercises are all predicated on doing the exercises correctly in an ideal neutral pelvic position.
Southeast Michigan Chiropractor | REACH Rehab + Chiropractic Center
That’s a great start to knowing how to fix anterior pelvic tilt. However, you don’t have to overcome the issue on your own. If you are in or around the Plymouth area, visit our chiropractic rehab center for professional assistance.
At REACH Rehab + Chiropractic, we provide five-star chiropractic services that treat the symptoms and causes of an anterior pelvis. You can count on our specialists for nonsurgical care with lasting results that help you feel better.
Are you ready to fix your anterior pelvic tilt? Contact our friendly team at REACH Rehab at (734) 335-0212 or**book here**.
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