No part of the body is an island.
You know where your pelvis is located but how much do you understand about its function and connection to the rest of the body?
The Cleveland Clinic defines it this way:
“Your pelvis is the seat of your axial skeleton (the central core of your skeletal system). It holds up your trunk and connects it with your legs below. Your pelvic bones form a sort of basin at the base of your spine, with an opening in the middle. These are the bones of your hips, buttocks and pubic area.
Your pelvic bones support the weight of your upper body, together with the muscles of your pelvic floor.
In your pelvis, several small joints between the vertebrae of your pelvic spine help your spine move. There are also several joints that connect the bones of your pelvic girdle to each other and the rest of your body.”
The pelvis can tilt or rotate forward and back. It can hike up or down on either side. It can do a combination of these movements at the same time.
Your pelvis is considered well-aligned or “neutral” when it’s tilted neither too far forward nor too far back. Problems can arise when your pelvis chronically deviates from this neutral position.
“A tilted pelvis disrupts what is known as the kinetic chain—how the joints, muscles, and body segments work together to enable movement. When the abnormal pelvic tilt disrupts the kinetic chain, other body segments are thrown off, leading to instability, mobility problems, and, most commonly, low back pain.” (verywellhealth.com)
The most common causes are muscular imbalance due to poor posture or inactivity, excess weight can also be a contributing factor. An anterior or posterior pelvic tilt often causes back pain because it forces the body to compensate for the misalignment resulting in an arch or slouch in the low back. This can usually be helped with specific exercise and lifestyle/ habit changes.
Anterior tilt of the pelvis benefits from exercises that encourage glute activation and hip extensions that balance the hip flexor and extensor muscles.
Posterior tilt benefits from exercises like bridges and back extensions that help restore the normal curve of the spine.
Pelvic imbalance where one hip is higher than the other, is more complicated and is usually structural but can also be caused by conditions such as osteoarthritis in the hip. The treatment for this type of pelvic imbalance varies but may be helped by certain exercises.
Pilates focuses on helping you to work from a neutral pelvis in different positions. It also promotes muscle balance, strengthening gluteal muscles, and movement of the limbs from the core.
Pilates is not the answer to everything but it may be a piece of the puzzle!
(Read the full source article here: https://www.verywellhealth.com/do-you-have-a-tilted-pelvis-296662)
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