What Is Anterior Hip Tilt?
Anterior hip tilt refers to a muscular strength imbalance in the lower half of the body where the hips are tilted forward and the lumbar spine is pulled into an exaggerated curvature. This can cause tightness and pain in the lower back.
How Does This Happen?
Anterior hip tilt occurs when there is a limited range of motion around the hips. The muscles responsible for hip range of motion and rotation are the hip flexors (psoas muscle, iliacus muscle rectus femoris muscle, pectineus muscle, and the sartorius muscle) and the hip extensors (quads, hamstrings, and glutes). When there is an imbalance between the flexion (moving towards the body) and extension (moving away from the body) movements of the hips, it can propel the hips forward as a compensatory movement pattern.
Sitting for long hours and not moving enough during the day can force the hip flexors, quads, and hamstrings to be excessively tight while the gluteals are weak. This means that the muscles that help you to flex and rotate your legs become locked up, because sitting reinforces the hips to be in an extended position while under-activating the butt muscles. If we also add weak core muscles to the mix, it becomes difficult to balance our weight in an upright sitting position, leading to slouching and poor posture.
Signs of Anterior Hip Tilt
- Forward hip tilt
- Pronounced curvature of the lumbar spine (the butt sticks out and the stomach protrudes outward)
- Tight hip flexors, quads and hamstrings
- Weak gluteal muscles
- Weak core muscles
- Tightness and pain in the lower back
How Do You Fix Anterior Hip Tilt?
To address anterior help tilt, it is important to focus on stretching out the hip flexors while strengthening the glutes and the core. We would recommend the following exercises:
- Release – psoas, tfl 60 -120 sec
- Activate – gluteals – side lying hip extension w/adduction 2 x20
- Integrate – plank w/single leg extension and contralateral reciprocal scaption 2 x 20
- Strengthen – Deadlift with single leg band distraction 2 x 20