How To Fix Anterior Pelvic Tilt For Back Problems

Do you have back pain? And do you think that it might be coming from an anterior pelvic tilt? What the heck is an anterior pelvic tilt? And why is it causing back pain to begin with men explain exactly what an anterior pelvic tilt is and how it’s causing your back pain and what to do about it so that you can fix this problem with one simple movement that you need to do throughout the day.

My name is Dr. David Middaugh. And I’m a specialist physical therapist El Paso manual physical therapy. And this channel is dedicated to helping people stay healthy, active and mobile, while avoiding an unnecessary surgery, injections and pain medications. Please subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any of the helpful videos that we put every single week

In anterior pelvic tilt is when the pelvis bones are tilting forward. I’m going to show you on the skeleton in this drawing today. And it’s causing an increased curvature in the back. And there’s muscle adaptations that happen. So when it affects just a sign up before I go too deep into this, it affects more than just the back.

If you have hip problems, knee problems, even upper back problems, even foot and ankle issues, it could be because of this, this could be the root problem that you need to fix. In order to fix all those problems. The lower back pain is probably the most common issue that results from an anterior pelvic tilt.

So what I’ve drawn here are the lower back bones vertebrae. So this is a 12345. And then here’s the pelvis bones. And then here’s the thigh bone and the kneecap and the shin bone. Here in the red, you’ve got the back extensor muscles. And you’ve got the hip flexor muscles in the front, this is the front on this side of the skeleton, and that’s the back in blue. Here we’ve got the abdominal muscles, and then the glute muscles.

None of this is to scale. By the way, there’s a lot more glute muscles, I didn’t draw the attachments perfectly. This is just a crude drawing. For those of you nerds out there that are like the hip flexors don’t attach to L five, I know that it’s just a matter of making it simple here. What I want to highlight on this is that any anterior pelvic tilt the pelvis bones tip forward. Let me show you all myself.

It’s this right here, but sticks out. So pelvis bones tip forward, abs get stretched out, the hip flexors shorten the ad, the back muscles back here, also shorten and it causes the glutes to shut down or when I say shut down doesn’t mean that they don’t have any activity whatsoever to sit there, they’re less active. And they aren’t used properly during everyday movements when the pelvis is tilted forward. And just to give you a visual on the skeleton here.

So there’s the backbones, here’s the pelvis bone. And what happens is this bone, I can’t move the skeleton very much because it’s all rigid. But these bones tip forward, and it takes the tailbone forward, which, which tips the back into forward, but then the rest of the back above that compensates by marking so that your straight up still you’re not going to fall over. And it causes an increased curvature in the spine, and it makes the butt stick out backwards.

Now, this is a relative issue. In other words, some people have a little bit, some people have it a lot. And some people can’t take this position very much before problems start happening. And so it looks like it’s not that bad, they’re not sticking their butt out that much or their back is into curved. And then some people can take quite a bit, they’re very curved in their back. And they don’t complain about they don’t really have very many issues, but eventually catches up with them as the years go by.

Because there’s some serious things that could develop from this. I’ll mention here in a second. So just some few more details around lower anterior pelvic tilt, it’s commonly called lower cross syndrome. And the reason for that is it the way that the muscles through the criss cross here and the way that they balance the spine and the pelvis.

Just in case you’ve heard of the terms out there, there’s something called upper cross syndrome to which has to deal with with posh and upper cross syndrome. It’s a forward head posture, rounded shoulders and the way the muscles stabilize the neck and shoulders, it crosses as well there they get shorter in the back of the neck long in the front of the neck, the muscles in the front of the chest gets short muscles in the back of his shoulders get get long. And so that’s why it’s called upper cross syndrome.

Another thing here to consider is the difference between short and tight. Because we use those interchangeably. Often healthcare professionals don’t really know the difference typically, but I need you to understand the difference. A short muscle is isn’t necessarily tight. So for instance, if you think of a bicep, right there, I shortened my bicep, so if I walk around with my elbows slightly bent and walk around, my arms crossed.

I have short biceps, it’s a relativity thing, I can change the position of my elbow and I no longer have a short bicep. If it’s tight, then I have a hard time stretching it out. If I, if I stretch it out, if I straighten out my elbow, I’ll feel a stretch, which then means that it’s tight. So it can be tight and short. But you can also be short without any tightness.

That’s an important distinction on this anterior pelvic tilt problem, because you may have short hip flexors, but they not may not be tight. You may have short back muscles, but they may also not be tight, they may be tight for sure that’s a common problem, his back muscles do get tight, and hip flexors do get tight.

But it’s important to note because if you don’t have that much tightness, then you have a great chance at fixing this problem. And it shouldn’t compress the spine too much. Because as you can see the way that the muscles attached in red here, the ones that get short, if those hip flexors are short and tight, they’re going to compress the vertebrae. Same thing with the ones in the back, they have direct attachments to the spine.

And so they can compress the vertebrae. And if you’re living like that, if you walk around like this, you sit like this, you you breathe like this, then you’re getting a mild level of compression through your back. And over time, you’re messing up your discs, you’re creating discs, you’re pinching nerves, you’re causing arthritis in the joints here and may not hurt you know, for the first year or so that you’re doing it, maybe you get little aches and pains, but nothing that stops you in your tracks.

But give it 10 1520 years, and you’ve got a massive disc herniation disc degeneration, you’ve got a pinched nerve, you got arthrosis arthropathy, all the bad things that you don’t want to hear on your MRI or X ray, that could be causing your back and may put you in a position where you need to go talk to a surgeon about it. You don’t want to do that you want to avoid that. And the simple root problem is fixing this anterior pelvic tilt, which I’m going to show you stay keep watching till the end.

Real quick. An analogy that you need to follow here. Everybody knows how to eat right, if you eat a bunch of sweets, if you’re eating, you know, ice cream, cake, candy, all that stuff on a regular basis, you know, it’s not good for you. And you’ve probably seen the pounds go up, or your health decline or both.

And you know that if you take that out, if you’ve done it before, your health starts to improve, and the weight starts to go down, if you make sure that you’re eating more healthy stuff, and people all over the world struggle with that some more than others. But think of it as the same thing with this, if an anterior pelvic tilt is like junk food for your spine, you want to reduce the amount of time that you spend in anterior pelvic tilt, post your pelvic tilt, basically tucking your blood in like this.

If you’re anteriorly tilted, if you do this right here, then that’s healthy for your spine. And now it’s just a matter of how much time do you spend in one position versus the other. Because if you spend more time in a post your pelvic tilt are relatively close to your pelvic tilt, that’s healthy for your spine.

That’s like if you were to eat, you know healthy foods for most of the week or all the week, then you’re going to feel healthier, you’re going to your weights can be managed, your general overall health will be better. So this isn’t a weight loss video, don’t feel bad. If you’re like, Oh, I should eat less sweets, everybody’s struggling with that no big deal.

What I want to show you next is the one exercise the one movement that you need to put into your day, so that you don’t have this anterior pelvic tilt problem following you around the rest of your life, it’s a bit of a switch, you have to flip in your head. And then it needs to be carried over into all your movements into just walking throughout the day.

And to sitting even exercising is a huge one because you’re going to use your muscles a little more strenuously than you might normally throughout the day. And if you can do it with a posterior pelvic tilt, now you’re training your muscles to work properly. So I’ve already kind of showed you but let’s talk it through.

If you stand up, do this and standing first. And you just squeeze your butt muscles and shove your hips forward like so it’s kind of like a hip thrust motion, you should feel that your butt muscles tighten up a bit. And then I want you on top of that to suck in your abs so that your back right here flattens out that curvature should reduce.

So this is an anterior pelvic tilt. And this is a posterior pelvic tilt. Now pause there for a second because if you’ve had trouble with this, you might not even get how to do this. You have no idea over half the clients that we see here in the clinic struggled tremendously with getting the right muscles to fire especially for the back part.

They’ll get the hip thrust part and the buttock muscles working they’ll get this but then I’ll tell them okay, suck in your abs and then they’ll do that straight here, and can you see how that right there cause my back to arch more. So what I want you to do is in standing, put your hand on your back like so you can put it flat or back of the hand, it doesn’t matter. And then suck in your abs.

And if you can see this, my shoulders and my chest, slouch a little bit, that’s a good thing. When your soldiers and chest slouch, your abs shorten, which makes them work and reduces the curvature in your lower back.

Now, if you think about this, at 100% intensity, if you squeeze those muscles as hard as you can 100%, you’re not going to last long, you’re going to last maybe just a few seconds, a minute or two at most, you don’t want to go that hard. For everyday purposes, I want you to just do all these motions at 10 to 20%. So next time you’re standing or when you go walking, so you don’t have to go to the bathroom, just subtly fire the butt muscles suddenly fire the ABS 10 20%, mild contraction, shoulders will slouch down a little bit. And that’s it.

You are in a relative post your pelvic tilt rather than an anterior pelvic tilt. you’ve just done this right here. Now you’ve got the work of doing this all the time. Now, there’s lots of videos out there about how to fix an anterior pelvic tilt. And they’ll go through a bunch of exercises where you lie down, you might pick up one leg or one arm, you might stretch the hip flexors because they’re shorter, tight, stretch the back muscles because he gets for tight too. And that’s all great, and you can do all that stuff.

But that’s working on just the length and the strength. And that’s just one factor of it. If you work in the length and strength, it will improve. But you got to carry it over into everyday motions. If you go right back to walking and standing and doing all your chores going to the grocery store exercising, with your blood sticking out in your back curb, you’re not going to fix it.

That’s like going to a nutrition class where you learn how to eat right, maybe you do eat right while you’re there. But then you go and you you’re eating ice cream all the time, you got to do healthy stuff for your back continuously throughout the day.

So what I recommend is get a timer going, you might have one on your watch, you might have one on your phone and your computer, you can purchase a really cheap kitchen timer for I know they sell near $1 tree for $1 you can probably get an even cheaper one if you look or set set a timer somewhere set, put a wristband on that you don’t only put on right on your hand with a pen, you know, lower back or add something that reminds you to tuck your pelvis and do that post your pelvic tilt.

And this has to become a habit. I think this is way more important than laying down and doing exercises for 1520 minutes a day, you’re going to get much more time throughout the day. In a relatively post your pelvic tilt which offloads the joints of the spine, the nerves the discs, it puts your back in a healthy position throughout the entire day.

So huge, huge, huge exercise to be doing you’ve got to tuck the pelvis in, suck in the ABS do a mini subtle slouch the upper body and seated it’s a little bit different. Let me just go through with you real quick. Instead of here, you’re just going to worry about sucking in your abs, it’s just the top part.

You don’t have to worry about your glutes, you have to tighten up your butt or shove your hips forward. It’s just sucking your abs and slouching just a bit and you’re going to sit there. If you’re having a meal if you’re working. If you’re at the computer, you need to just tighten up your abs in in a way that flattens out your back a bit. That’s all it is.

If you can do that throughout the day while you’re sitting, you’re doing great healthy stuff for your back and protecting yourself from damage that is going to last a lifetime potentially cause you to get some surgery that you could have prevented it ended up being unnecessary. Had you just been firing your abs and offloading your back.

Now a common question that I get is what about back curvature? Because, you know, I went to the chiropractor, they did an X ray and they measured my back and told me that it was too straight. Well, I would see if that’s really a problem for you’re not test it out. test this out, do this with your back.

Do that the posts your pelvic tilt and standing and see how you feel. And if you feel better, regardless of what the chiropractor said about the angulation of your spine, the degrees that you’re curved, then that’s what you got to go by. You’re not going to be causing long term damage.

Your body’s very good at letting you know when things are wrong. your back muscles will feel tight you’ll get some aches and pains you’ll get this issues back issues join issues, your body will let you know if it’s not healthy for you.

I have seen time and time again people coming in and they tell them they got too much curvature in the spine that they needed actually make a curve. And then they get all the pulling their hair out because they could they get confused about which position they should be, is it too curved or not curved enough, and that what I always rest on is make it more straight than curved. If it’s straight, you’re good.

Forget the X ray. Forget all the other stuff. Just go by how you feel. You need to fire muscles. That’s a given because it helps you to move right up to get in the right posture. And I’m telling you how to fire the muscles correctly. You got to get the butt muscles tight, abs in many slouch, and you got to walk like that. That’s what’s going to fix your problem.

Now if you want more comprehensive exercises, we’ve got tons of exercises, lots of guided advice and coaching in a program called the 28 Day Back Health And Wellness Boost Program. This program is designed to help you increase your back health especially if you got a look at this problem arthritis, nerves, pinched nerves, the sciatica this helps out tremendously for fixing your back problem.

Now, it infuses the ideas that I’m talking about looking at the skeleton here, with the posterior pelvic tilt anterior pelvic tilt, it shows you how to do exercises meaning if you can’t do the more advanced exercises, you can see how to do it in a way that is right for you without getting more injured.

It is designed to carry you through 28 days of improving your back. Now it may not cure the problem in 28 days but you go through it again as many times as you need to and is just lubricating everything in your spine making sure your joints moving well decompressing discs. It makes you stronger. We had great reviews from this back program. And you can look for the link in the description below the 28 day back health and wellness boost program.

We’ve also got tons of other videos for back problems and other issues related to anterior pelvic tilt like back pain and knee pain. So check out our channel all those are available to you right now. Thanks so much guys and we wish you the very best in your back problem. Have a great day.