It seems that more and more people are suffering from chronic pain which often comes from the lower back area, hips, knees or shoulders. Most of the times the cause for these pains is an imbalanced core.
The most frequent type of core imbalances is the Anterior Pelvic Tilt.
Now, the worst part about this, besides the pain obviously is that it can limit your performance in the gym, but it can even become so serious that it affects your everyday activities and it can actually become a serious condition. (Also it looks pretty bad, and we all want to have nice posture and look aesthetic, right?)
What Is Anterior Pelvic Tilt And How Do I know I Got It?
If you can imagine your pelvis as bucket filled with water, the normal position of your pelvis would be neutral so just a tiny bit rotated forward. But just a little bit – maybe 2 or 3 degrees.
People who suffer from Anterior Pelvic Tilt will have a more pronounced tilt of the pelvis, to the point where you can actually see with the naked eye an arch in their lower back.
Basically their buty is sticking out in the air and the waist line tilted forward.
The easiest way to picture this is to imagine Donald Duck and how his body looks. His butt sticks out and his stomach spills forward – that’s ATP!
Does Anterior Pelvic Tilt Cause Pain?
You can have Anterior Pelvic Tilt without experiencing any pain or discomfort, but if you don’t fix it early on, chances are that you will develop some kind of lower back pain down the road. So it’s extremely important to get rid of Anterior Pelvic Tilt as soon as possible.
What causes Anterior Pelvic Tilt?
As we briefly mentioned already, Anterior Pelvic Tilt is caused by muscle imbalances. To be more specific about it, overly tightened hip flexors and lower back muscles combined with weak abdominals, hamstrings and glutes are usually the recipe for this condition.
Sometimes Anterior Pelvic Tilt will cause you knees to slightly rotate inwards (called knocked knees) which can result later on in knees pain as well, especially if you are lifting weights.
How To Fix Anterior Pelvic Tilt (For Good!)
Fixing Anterior Pelvic Tilt will involve of a series of different exercises that stretch and strengthen different body parts or muscle groups.
For stretching we are going to focus on hip flexors and lower back, while for strengthening we are going to target the core, glutes and hamstrings. Here we go.
Stretches For ATP
Iliopsoas Stretch
The way to perform this is by placing one foot forward, place your hands on top of the thigh of the leg you placed forward.
Then start pushing your pelvis forward as you are flexing your glutes.
As you do that bend your knees and lower yourself 2 inches from the ground. You should feel a nice, deep stretch in the front of your hip flexors.
Hold this stretch for about 1-2 minutes and then switch legs and perform the same movement. Do these for 3-4 sets per each leg.
Quad Stretch
Get down on your chest and once you are in position you are going to lift your right leg and reach back with your right hand and try to pull your foot to your glutes.
Hold this position for 1-2 minutes. Immediately after that switch legs and repeat.
Just as before, do 3-4 sets per each leg. As you go back and forth with this, you should be able to get a deeper and deeper stretch. If you want to make it even more challenging you can use both hands to pull your leg, but don’t overdo it and don’t injure yourself.
Lower Back Stretch
You do not want to do this exercise standing because that can cause injuries in people with Anterior Pelvic Tilt.
So sit down on chair and once you are seated, hang over and relax your upper body completely.
So your hands, your shoulders and head should be relaxed and just hang.
Breathe regularly and try to get lower and lower to the point where you really feel the lower back starting to stretch. Hold this position for 1-2 minutes. When you are done, stand up, shake up your upper body and lower back a bit and then get back into position.
As before, do this stretch 3-4 times.
Strengthening Exercises For ATP
Now you have completed all the stretching exercises and it’s time to get started on strengthening the weaker muscle groups in your body.
We are going to start off by performing simple movement on the floor and once we are done with that we are going to move on to functional and complex movement patterns.
The No-Gap
Lay down in a sit-up position with your feet at 90 degrees flat on the ground and tuck your hips down to eliminate the gap between your lower back and the floor.
Once you are in place keep your abs tight, glutes flexed and start pointing one leg forward and then alternate between your legs.
Do 25 reps per leg and 3-4 sets. Make sure that the gap does not come back as you perform the movement.
Even though this exercise seems pretty straight forward, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to perform for people with Anterior Pelvic Tilt.
Glute Bridge
Get into the same starting position as before making sure that there’s no gap between your lower back and the floor. Once you are in position start pushing through your heels and extend the glutes to the ceiling.
Flex as hard as you can and try to get a bit of hyperextension at the very top of the movement.
This is how you fully engage the glutes. Hold the position for 20 seconds, come back down are rest for a few seconds and repeat the movement 10 times.
Do a total of 3-4 sets.
Plank
The third and final exercise is the plank. This exercise is going to activate your abs and glutes at the same time.
So get down on your elbows and your toes. If this is too hard for you to can go down to your knees to make the plank easier.
Hold the plank for as long as you can and do 3-4 sets of this, but make sure that your body is 100% straight while holding the plank.
Over to you
Try to do this little routine at least 4 days a week.
It works great as a way to wake up the body in the mornings, or you can do it as a warm up when you’re at the gym. If you’re a night owl, it can also be a relaxing way to end the night before you go to bed.
You’ll start to see improvement within a month and hopefully cure your entire ATP within a few months!