Understanding posture – What’s your pelvis doing?

pelvis

What’s your pelvis doing right now?

Don’t know? Maybe you should.

Is your pelvis smiling or frowning? Tilting or twisting? Pulling or pushing? Dancing or dragging?

Pelvic tilt effects more than you’ve ever thought possible and impacts you in many ways including: digestion – affecting your ability to assimilate nutrients and eliminate waste products and toxins; breathing – related to your ability to absorb oxygen from the air and eliminate carbon dioxide; reproduction – pelvic tilt is tied to your ability to get pregnant and to deliver your baby vaginally; pain – improper pelvic tilt can cause everything from herniated discs to degenerative disc disease to muscle spasms to stenosis; energy levels – either giving you endless energy to do anything you can dream of or sapping all your energy leaving you feeling drained and foggy; emotion – depending on how your pelvis is tilted it can put you in a state of depression and hopelessness or complete peace of mind.

Here are some different ways your pelvis can tilt, what problems it can create and what it tells us about you:

Anterior pelvic tilt

Anterior pelvic tilt typically causes lumbar lordorsis and compression in the low back leading to low back pain and wear and tear to the structures of the spine. This pelvic tilt also changes the position of many internal organs that fall forward and down with the sagging gut. All our organs are designed to work in a certain position relative to each other and to gravity and changes in position effect their efficiency and ability to work.

Pete Egoscue and others have written about how this pelvic position often relates to someone who is a fact-finder or seeker. These people are detail oriented and often run around collecting facts and information but rarely act on what they find (to learn more read Let’s Lighten Up). My take is because they are overusing their hip flexors instead of their gait muscles they are treading water in life and never really getting anywhere. Their engine will burn out eventually…All this running around fact-finding and seeking is making this person (to themselves and others) appear like they have lots of energy but in reality they are running on empty and ready to crash. It’s like a chicken with it’s head cut off – it looks energetic now but the crash is coming!

The crash can come on slowly in the form of heart burn, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, or fast in the form of a heart attack or stroke.

Posterior pelvic tilt

Posterior pelvic tilt will usually result in a loss of the normal lumbar curve effectively loose packing the vertebral discs making them susceptible to herniation. This pelvic position over time will lead to a C-curve of the spine often looking like this:

A pelvis and spine in this position will negatively effect breathing, digestion, cardiovascular function, lymphatic drainage, brain function and mental/emotional status. Stand up and try this: tilt your butt under and round your shoulders forward creating a C-curve to your spine like shown above. Let your head move forward and down. Stay in this position and notice how you can’t take in a full breathe of air. Blood flow is also being slowly cut off to your head which will lead to headaches and vision problems and low energy. Your mood will also slowly turn sour as this posture is associated with negativity, hopelessness, despair, depression and fear. In The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion Pete Egoscue puts it this way:

The body has become so dysfunctional that its structure and systems are literally on the brink of collapse. It’s not unusual for (this) person to feel lousy-physically and mentally. He or she blames it on old age, bad luck, lack of opportunity, Mom and Dad, the boss, a rotten job, the screaming kids…whatever.

Pelvic rotation

Pelvic rotation is very common in today’s society and can lead to a multitude of problems in the musculoskeletal system and in the internal organ functions.

When your pelvis rotates it will have a significant impact on your joint mechanics up and down your entire body. Hips joints are obviously effected with their ability to flex and extend negatively impacted. Pelvic rotation will lead to disparities in femur position (often one femur internal and the other external) and this will create a rotational force in the knee. The knee is a hinge joint designed to flex and extend not rotate. Rotation creates friction and will wear and tear the structures of the knee over time and increase the likelihood of ligament injuries. Since the body is a unit, pelvic rotation will cause the upper body to compensate often by rotating itself creating a whole host of other issues. With rotation imagine what is happening to the internal organs – it’s like a kinking a hose – not good for their function!

Anterior-posterior tilt disparity

This is basically where one side of your pelvis is tilted anterior and the other side is tilted posterior. Like rotation, imbalances left to right in the pelvis are fairly common and cause many problems. You have two sides to your pelvis – a right side and a left side – and one spinal column. If your right ilium is tilted forward (anterior) and your left ilium is tilted backward (posterior) your poor spine has to choose sides in this tug-a-war. And this is one tug-a-war your body is not going to win!

This posture can create major SI joint pain, sacral pain, lumbar pain, along with hip pain and sciatica.

Pelvic elevation

This is often blamed on a leg length difference but in my experience it is usually just muscle imbalances. Sometimes we are told we have an elevated pelvis on one side or a longer leg but it is actually an anterior-posterior tilt disparity in reality. (A good postural analysis by a qualified therapist will be able to tell you the difference.) One thing can be certain: the leaning tower of pisa will eventually colapse in a pill of rubble or in your case – pain. This is a recipe for hip pain, low back pain, or sciatica – all usually just on one side.

Pelvic rotation, anterior-posterior tilt disparity and pelvic elevation are all related to the right and left sides of the body doing something different than each other. There is no question the body and mind are related and we see this play out in people with these postural imbalances. Very often these people are indecisive, don’t follow through, and skeptical. With one side of the pelvis moving forward and the other dragging behind this person is getting mixed messages from their body that their mind can’t make sense of either. Their mind reacts in the same way as the body – half in half out, stuck on the fence, and teeter-tottering. This wrecks havoc on the persons emotions – jumping from one extreme to the other. Since neurotransmitters are released by the brain depending on what signals it gets from the emotional body, this person is getting overdosed in one neurotransmitter one minute the under-dosed the next. The body starts playing chemical warfare on itself which can lead to a multitude of diseases and disorders of the mind and body.

Pelvis forward of the line of gravity – swayback

Your eight major load joints (ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders) are designed to be vertically aligned one on top of the other where the line of gravity would intersect each joint. Here you can see how her pelvis is forward of her ankle and the line of gravity.

This position of the pelvis is usually a sign of weakness as the pelvis is unable to stabilize itself. This will lead to compensation up and down the body because something has to take over the stabilizing of the body. It could be the upper back or the calves or any number of other scenarios, but no matter what the body is not happy.

As this person’s pelvis moves forward the upper body leans back and the head goes forward. This head position tells the brain the same message – “you’re unsupported and all on your own.” Vertigo is a common symptom along with low energy, weakness, headaches (tension and migraine), TMJ, and even vision problems from restricted blood flow.

That’s just about every position the pelvis can move into right? Oh, except the one it’s designed to be in!

Neutral pelvis

Function Freddy will show us what a neutral pelvis looks like:

Level, even, balanced, lined up with gravity, supported, strong, flexible, agile, aware, calm, and peaceful. This also describes how we feel mentally and emotionally when our body is in balance. We have peace of mind.

Restoring balance

There is good news in all of this: No matter what your pelvis is doing right now, it can return to a neutral position, putting your body and mind as ease. The Egoscue Method has helped thousands of people just like you restore their posture and return to a pain free and active life without limitations. Egoscue is a postural therapy program designed to restore joint alignment, muscle strength and flexibility, and overall health and wellness through the use of personalized exercise routines. Since muscles move bones and the body is constantly responding to stimulus, the use of specialized e-cises in a specific order (an Egoscue “menu”) can be very effective at restoring posture no matter someone’s age, history, or fitness level. To find out more contact your closest Egoscue clinic. Pain Relief and Peace of Mind is only a phone call away!