Hip Rotation and Pelvic Function

This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at the canfitpro conference in Calgary, and managed to not make myself look like too much of a tool. I love going to events like this as much as to bigger and farther away events because it gives me a chance to actually recognize a face or two in the audience and catch up with some friends and colleagues who I would otherwise only see through their Facebook updates.

My seminar was called “Muscle Imbalances and Performance: How to Find The Source of the Problem,” and I can honestly say that only Ricky Bobby could have pissed more excellence.

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I decided to make an executive decision prior to the seminar and turn it from a lecture to a workshop, which meant I almost gave our room attendant an aneurism by moving all the chairs to the side of the room and getting the standing-room-only crowd to do assessments and corrective exercises for hip and shoulder issues. While it was awesome to be tripping over bodies on the floor and try to help out everyone at once, it was pretty apparent that minds were being blown left right and centre. I sent everyone in attendance videos of the exercises and assessments so they could refer back to them at their leisure. I’m a big believer that people won’t learn from seeing something only once, they have to see it multiple times, try it out, get corrected, and master the hell out of it before they feel confident in their abilities.

One thing that kind of got my attention during the session was the look on everyone’s face when we went through testing and corrective exercises for hip internal rotation. Everyone seemed to think that the hips were best moved throug that it would automatically cause the hips to dislocate and make Nancy Grace become somewhat coherent. Some were horrified that you should bend that way, but then everyone also commented that I have some pretty fantastic flexibility, thank you very much.

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While most training programs focus on mobility through the saggital plane and assume most basic movements will also result in improvements in other directions, some people need more specific interventions. People with posterior pelvic tilts tend to be limited in internal rotation during terminal stance. This is due to the altered center of the acetabulum with the new position of the pelvis, causing the femoral head to sislightly different within the cup. It also increases tension along the IT band and biceps femoris, which causes a lateral rotation to reduce some of the soft tissue stress.

If someone is in posterior tilt, it may be due to a limitation in hip internal rotation, however it isn’t necessarilydue to a reduction in internal rotation. This is where assessments come in to play to rule out what is and what isn’t the problem, and start specific corrective exercises for the remaining problems. If internal rotation is truly the problem, giving exercises to improve it should reduce the problems within about 2 sessions. If the problem still exists after this time, then it may not have been the actual problem, and a new set of corrections should be considered.

The downside to a lot of assessments is that we tend to try to focus on isolation and microscoping the problem to get down to he problem on a near cellular level. If the illiopsoas is tight, then stretching it should give some relief, right? What we forget to ask is why is that specific or weak or not functioning properly. Is it because of running technique? Bone and joint structure? altered core stability? Arch structure? Maybe everything together? Muscles don’t just get tight, they become tight for a reason. Finding out what eason is and addressing it wil always give more benefits and results than simply working on the end result.

So after spending 90 minutes trying to touch the tip of the iceberg as far as assessing and designing corrective exercise programs for the hips and shoulders, I decided to hit the road and make it back before dark, which is getting earlier each day. I’m thinking that from some of the emails I recieved from attendants that I did a pretty god job, so hopefully some new trainers will look at how they design their programs and assess their clients a little differently after spending some time listening to me ramble on.