What is an Anterior Pelvic Tilt?

A Pelvic tilt refers to how much your hips lean toward the front or back of your body.

If your clients hips lean forward, then the client could have anterior (front) pelvic tilt.

If your hips are more oriented toward the back of your body, you have posterior (back) pelvic tilt.

Here’s what this looks like:

As you can see, there are two points on your pelvis that are important here:

• The posterior superior iliac spine, or PSIS.
• The anterior superior iliac spine, or ASIS.

When you draw a line between the ASIS and PSIS, you get the angle of pelvic tilt.

If the ASIS is lower than the PSIS, you’re said to be in anterior pelvic tilt, if it’s the other way around, you’re in posterior pelvic tilt, and if they’re more or less level, you have a neutrally positioned pelvis.

What contributes to an Anterior Pelvic Tilt?

Typically, anterior pelvic tilts arise from a combination of these four factors:

1. Weak abdominal muscles
2. Weak Glutes
3. Tight Hip Flexors
4. Tight Thoracolumbar Extensors (Back Muscles)

Treatments

Correcting for an anterior pelvic tilt means you will have to first properly assess the condition. Remember, as a massage therapist you should never diagnose, however visually assessing for short & tight muscles is in my opinion YOUR JOB. In future lessons we will have a video demonstrating a full assessment. You should also correct the four contributing factors:

1. Massage & Stretch the the tight thoracolumbar extensors, and hip flexors either through Deep Tissue Massage, Myofascial Release Techniques or PNF Stretching.

Specifically:

1. Iliacus
2. Psoas
3. Erectors
4. Thoracolumbar Aponeurosis (Myofascial techniques preferred)
5. Quadratus Lumborum

Note: It is said that 80% of the population has some form of this tilt because of the natural curve in the lower lumbar spine. It does not need to be addressed unless the client is having symptoms (i.e. low back pain). With that said, it is always encouraged to identify the short muscles in your clients to help them prevent issues in the future.

Strengthening the lower abdominal muscles and glutes to better support the low back. (this you can not do, but you should make this suggestion to your client and refer them to a PT or Certified Trainer.)