1. Pelvic Tilts Help Your Posture
The pelvic tilt is one of the staple therapeutic exercises used to help postural problems and lower back pain. This type of exercise increases the strength of the lower back muscles. Pelvic tilts help you experience a full range of motion in both the pelvis and lower back vertebrae. This move loosens up any stiffness and can improve posture.
2. Do the Tilt
Begin by lying on your back with your hands at your sides. Raise your knees and bring your feet in as close to your buttocks as you can. Keep the toes pointed forward and your knees about shoulder width apart. Contract your stomach muscles and lift your pelvis to the ceiling, using those muscles. You can lift your bum entirely off of the floor so that you're in an arch. This position is called creating a bridge. Alternatively, you can make the move more subtle where your bum barely lifts from the ground. Hold the pose for 30 seconds with a 15 second rest in between. Do this move for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Relax Those Bum Muscles!
To make pelvic tilts as effective as possible, proper form needs to be followed. Many people make the mistake of using their buttocks muscles to raise their hips. While doing this really works your buttocks, it doesn't do a whole lot for your lower back. The movement of a pelvic tilt is much more subtle. Focus on your abdominals instead and use these core muscles to lift your hips. This move will balance the strength of the muscles throughout your pelvis while strengthening the deep muscles of posture.
4. Not Just for Your Back
Pelvic tilts wake up the nerves in your back and exercise the core muscles in your pelvis and lower back to increase back stability and help with posture. While these are the main benefits of this exercise, they're not the only ones. Pelvic tilts also stretch the hip muscles, hamstrings, quadriceps and the psoas major and minor. The psoas major starts at the spine around the bottom of the rib cage and runs down the thigh bone (femur). It causes flexing in the hip. The psoas minor begins in the same spot but runs down to the bony pelvis. It flexes the lower spine (lumbar).
5. Pelvic Tilts are for Everyone
Everyone should do pelvic tilts. They are gentle enough on your body that they're one of the first exercises used in many physical rehabilitation programs. Daily activities, or even an inactivity like sitting down all day behind a computer, can put the alignment of your back and pelvis out. Pelvic tilts fix this problem.
