Exercises for the pelvic bones are exercises that work the muscles around your hips and pelvis. Exercises using increasingly heavier resistance helps decrease your rate of bone loss and your risk of bone fractures. In some cases, the American College of Sports Medicine reports, highly vigorous weight-bearing endurance and resistance training increase bone mineral density. Perform pelvic bone exercises using the equipment at your local gym.
Squats
Squats engage the muscles attaching to your pelvic bones, including your glutes, your hamstrings and your quadriceps. Your gluteus muscles originate on your ilium, the largest of your pelvic bones more commonly known as your hip bones. Hamstring muscles attach to your ischium or the bones you feel when you sit on your buttocks. Your main quadriceps muscle arises on the front of your iliac bone as well. Perform a squat by placing a barbell across your shoulders, your feet shoulder-width apart and lowering your pelvis until your thighs are nearly parallel to the floor. Return to a straightened position and repeat.
Cable Adduction
Adducting your thighs or bringing your thigh toward the middle of your body works your three adductor muscles, your small pectineus and your long gracilis muscle, typically sprained in a groin injury. Most of your hip adductor muscles originate on the smallest bone of your pelvis, the pubic bone, which you can feel under your genitals. Complete cable adductions by placing a cable ankle strap around your right ankle. Set the pulley weight to 20 lbs., and with your right side adjacent (side to side from each other) to the pulley bars, step 12 inches away from the bar. Slowly draw your right leg across your left leg then toward the pulley bar, repeating the back and forth motion.
Hip Flexion
Bending your hips to bring your knee closer to your chest is hip flexion. Hip flexion engages the smaller muscles at the front of your pelvis, your psoas and iliacus muscles. Walking and running automatically require you to flex your hip. Improve the strength of your hip flexors by strapping ankle weights on your ankle. Hold on to an immovable object as you bend your right hip to draw your knee toward your chest until your right thigh is parallel to the floor. Lower your leg and repeat.
Weighted Crunches on an Exercise Ball
All of your abdominal muscles attach to your pelvic bones. Strengthen your pelvic bones by doing weighted crunches. Hold a 20 lb. dumbbell across your upper chest with your mid-back on the exercise ball and your feet securely on the floor. Draw your rib cage and pelvis toward each other. Then, slowly return to the start position, working your abdominal muscles in both directions.
Dumbbell Side Bends
Your left and right quadratus lumborum muscle is the soft tissue protecting your abdominal cavity from the back side and is located on your lower back between your last rib and your iliac bone. The primary movement of your quadratus lumborum is to bend your trunk sideways. Perform side bends by holding a 15 lb. dumbbell in each hand with your feet wider than shoulder-width. Bend your knees slightly as you lower the right dumbbell to the side just past your right knee, then repeat on your left side. Continue to alternate sides.
References
- American College of Sports Medicine: Physical Activity and Bone Health
- "Anatomy & Physiology"; Gary A. Thibodeau, PhD and Kevin T. Patton, PhD; 2007
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