Excessive anterior pelvic tilt can cause lower back, hip, or knee pain. Let’s take a dive into this common complaint that many cyclists have, and take a look at a more real, and permanent, way to address it.
When it comes to addressing issues that we as cyclists tend to have with strength training, many believe it’s as simple as “just doing this one stretch”. Or, this ONE exercise.
While it’s a wonderful concept, it is very wishful thinking, as very rarely will pain, discomfort, or a performance limiter be caused by one single thing.
Excessive Anterior Pelvic Tilt
If you take a look around during your next coffee stop, you’ll probably notice that many, if not all, of your riding buddies has some kind of anterior pelvic tilt. You know, where if they were wearing one of those giant Leadville 100 Finishers Belt buckles, it would be pointing down towards the floor about 10 feet in front of them.
While anterior pelvic tilt itself is not an issue, excessive anterior pelvic tilt, which causes lower back, hip, or knee pain, is.
These last few years with the rising interest in strength training to aid riders in their quest for more watts or speed, we’ve seen many well meaning folks hawking the latest and greatest exercise to “fix it”. But in fact, anterior pelvic tilt has a number of contributing factors that need to be addressed if we truly want to fix the underlying issue.
Four Causes of Excessive Anterior Pelvic Tilt
The 4 major contributing issues to excessive anterior pelvic tilt are:
- Overbearing/overly strong quads
- Obliques which are not pulling their weight
- Tight hip flexors
- Abs and hamstrings being weaker and unable to balance with the quads
The good news is that with the right recipe, you CAN resolve the issues and re-balance the muscles to help get you into better postures and positions, so you can ride stronger, longer, at faster speeds, and with more power.
Instead of trying to use many words to describe the 10-15 minute sequence of exercises and how to do them, I’ve made a video which explains a bit more about the contributing factors, and the exercises and how to do them.
Conclusion
When it comes to strength training for cycling performance, or to help you get rid of pain or discomfort, there absolutely must be a systematic and holistic approach that addresses not only the source of the symptoms themselves, but all of the contributing factors that put you into a vulnerable position.
Failure to either understand the system as a whole and where the breakdowns are, or the lack of understanding of how “small hinges swing big doors”, will often lead riders on the long term merry-go-round of visits to physical therapists, massage therapists, and constantly tinkering with their riding position or gearing, in a futile attempt to get out of pain, and build some kind of long term enjoyment of their riding, or fitness.
Don’t just look for exercises, stretches, or massages to address your issues, but instead seek out a qualified and knowledgeable professional who can identify the small hinges, AND the big picture challenges, and who can help you address them – now, and for a healthier, stronger you in the long term.
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