When we worked in Japan, we would never have guessed that we'd be
writing an article about the pelvis! Despite our dance training since
age 3, we had never stopped to learn or even think about the role the
pelvis plays in the body.
While climbing the corporate ladder, we
were no longer dancing, but we were running 7 miles in the morning,
barely stretching and then sitting all day long -- usually 10 hours at
least -- to make sure our Japanese colleagues knew we were serious
hard-workers. In retrospect, knowing more about the pelvis and its
surrounding the muscles would have saved our poor wittle backs (and
probably increased our productivity too!)
Even if you've only
taken one Pilates class in your life, your teacher most likely
mentioned your pelvis more times than you could count! So why is the
pelvis so important? In layman's terms, it connects the upper and lover
halves of the body. Tightness in the muscles that connect to the pelvis
(which includes the abdominal muscles, hip flexors and hamstrings among
others) cause problems in both the upper AND lower extremities. So YES
-- it's pretty important!
So now for "Pelvis 101": the word
"pelvis" means "basin" in Latin. This is useful for visualizing how
your pelvis should be positioned in relation to your spine and your
femur (your thigh bone). If your pelvis were actually a basin full of
water, you would want to walk, stand and sit keeping that basin
completely level horizontally, so that the water wouldn't spill out the
front or the back. This is your "neutral" pelvis when upright and is
depicted above by the picture in the middle. The term "ASIS" refers to
your hip bones and the term "PSIS" is most easily described as those
dimples you may see on the small of your back (though not completely
accurate). You can see that the "basin" in the middle would not spill
water down the front or back of your legs!
Likewise, an "anterior
tilt" pictured on the left and a "posterior tilt" depicted on the right
show common misalignments in the body. Think of it this way: in an
"anterior tilt", the hip bones move forward (anteriorly) relative to
the pubic bone (the basin tips forward) and in a "posterior tilt", the
hip bones move back (posteriorly) relative to the pubic bone (the basin
tips backwards). For those readers who care about the detailed
anatomical definitions of all this,
click here! Since
Pilates mainly occurs lying down, think that you rotate the above
picture clockwise 90 degrees to put all the images on their backs! When
lying down, a neutral pelvis is defined by the hip bones and the pubic
bone in the same horizontal plane. An anterior tilt is seen by the
lower back arching and the pubic bone dropping towards the floor and
the hip bones rising, and a posterior tilt is seen by the lower back
curling towards the mat with the pubic bone rising and the hip bones
dropping.
In Pilates, all three positions are used, so you must
listen to your instructor and know where your pelvis is at all times!
Here are three exercises that require the three different positions:
Swan Dive (pelvis moves from neutral to an anterior tilt);
One Leg Circle (pelvis stays neutral throughout); and
Rolling Like a Ball
(pelvis stays posteriorly tilted throughout.) Want more? Our
UltimatePilatesWorkouts.com website offers a full technique video on
the training page just on the
pelvis so log on and watch it!