When it comes to anterior pelvic tilt correction, if you don’t take anything else from this article, I want you to take on thing, and that is to learn how to neutralize your pelvis so that you become aware of what it feels like to have your pelvis in the correct position.
Now how do you physically neutralize your pelvis? Well the first tip I can give you is to stand up against a wall and try and press your lower back into the wall. You will notice your tail bone dropping down and most likely an ease of tension in your hip flexors, which tight hip flexors and one of the main cause of your LPHC dysfunction.
Now that you have done that, you now have a feel for what it is like to create better alignment in your lumbo pelvic hip complex. But don’t stop there, keep doing it 10 -15 times, allowing you to become even more familiar with that feeling.
Also, if you want to try it on the ground as well you can. Lie on you back and pull your heels towards your but putting your knees up and keeping your feet planted into the ground. Now again just simply push your lower back into the ground and repeat it a few times.
Now that you know how to temporarily correct anterior pelvic tilt problems, you can now move onto the next step, which is the exercises that helps them.
ALSO, if you are a gym rat like myself, I want you to start neutralizing your pelvis DURING exercises. This will allow us to stop the anterior tilt you have from getting any worse as doing exercises with anterior tilt problems can heavily contribute to even more dysfunction!
Anterior Pelvic Tilt Correction Exercises
So like I mentioned before you are going to be neutralizing your pelvis during workouts, but your also going to be doing so in the exercises we are going to talk about below. This will allow you to enhance the stretches you are doing to create faster results with your pelvic alignment.
Hip Flexor Stretch
This is a must, as we all sit so much during the day that most of the world has tight hip flexors. No matter how mad your anterior pelvic tilt misalignment is, you need to do hip flexor stretches daily to correct your problem.
What you want to do is get in a position with one knee on the ground with your quad perfectly parallel, with the other leg having your knee up with your quad being perfectly horizontal. Next you want to lean forward until you feel a stretch in your hip flexor on the side which you knee is on the ground. Do this for 30-45 seconds or until you feel the tension release.
Another tip for this is to keep your upper body straight, don’t lean forward. This can be done by placing the front of your hand on your stomach and your back of your other hand on your lower back.
Plank
The simple plank will help you strengthen your lower abdominals which weak lower abdominals play a big factor in throwing off your pelvis. What happens when we have weak lower abdominals is that our entire abdominal section is in a lengthened position, causing whats behind us, our lower back to go into a more curved position as well as tighten hip flexors.
Do this for as long as you can, or at least 30 seconds. Try to increase your time each time you do a plank and this will eventually create stronger lower abs.
Ball Wall Squats
Ball wall squats are an excellent correction exercise for anterior pelvic tilt as the strengthen the glutes, which when you have weak a weak gluteus maximus, you are bound to have problems with your pelvis.
So you want to take an inflated medicine ball, place it up against the wall where it is stabilized by your lower back, and simply want to squat down until you are horizontal with your quads then come back up.
To make this exercise more challenging, you will want to do so with dumbbells in your hands.
Hip Thrusts
Another awesome exercise for problems with LPHC are hip thrusts. They also strengthen the glutes isolating them very well. You will want to sit down against the side of a bench and make sure your feet are on the round while slightly elevating your butt off the ground. With the barbell placed in your lap, you will want to drive the weight up using your pelvis. Remember to keep your spine neutralized!
Flutter Kicks
Lie on the ground with your pelvis pushed into the ground and simply elevate your legs and move your legs like they are scissors. Now the key with this that will help you create stronger lower abdominals with this is to keep your legs about 6-10 inches off the ground. This will target your lower abs very well, you will feel the burn very quick with this one!
Qaudriceps Stretch
Having tight quads will in turn create weak or over stretched hamstrings. Doing a quad stretch by standing up and grabbing your foot, which you can hold onto something stationary to keep you balance, hold the stretch for for 30-45 seconds or until you feel the tension ease in the quad that you are stretching.
Latissimus Dorsi Stretch
You also want to stretch out the lats because tight lats lead to anterior pelvic tilt problems as well. You can do so by getting an inflated medicine ball. Get on both knees and put the ball out in front of you, placing your wrist on the ball and stretching out until your back is straight and you feel tension in your lats.
Do this for 30 – 45 seconds or until you feel the tension ease then repeat on the other side!
LASTLY….. FOAM ROLLING!
You will also want to foam roll both your your quads as well as your latissimus dorsi as well. Doing so will release adhesions in your muscles that have built up over the years, allowing your muscles to run the path down your bones that they are supposed to!
Conclusion To Creating A More Aligned You!
So we have created a program that targets all the chinks in your armor when it comes to having great pelvis alignment, being the hip flexors, lower abdominals, quads and glutes.
With these tips you should be able to correct your anterior pelvic tilt problem over time and feel less lower back pain as well as be able to do exercises with correct form, shying away from potential injuries that come from having anterior pelvic tilt.
It will also better prepare your body for just life in general as you will have better posture where your muscular skeletal system is working correctly.
Remember though how long you have had this misalignment, correction unfortunately won’t happen overnight but by integrating the tips you can correct it for good and not have to be plagued by it anymore!
Just remember to align your spine more with the tip we talked about at the first part of the article, do so at the office, while you walk and even when you lie down. This will engrain the pattern into your muscle memory and allow you to correct it subconsciously as well!
