Introducing hip mobility and lumbar stability

Recently, I touched on the dangers of sitting typing at a keyboard all day and how it can cause shoulder problems.  I explained how the hunchback you get from typing with bad posture can lead to shoulder impingements because the space in the joint is reduced in size.  The hunchback is called “thoracic kyphosis” and this means that the upper back is curved over forwards, towards the face.

In my two-part article on maintaining shoulder health, I covered:

• how soft tissue rolling is great for shoulder health; and
• how improving your thoracic mobility will do wonders for your shoulder dysfunction.

However, I didn’t mention that you can also develop an overly mobile lower back and tight hip muscles from sitting typing all day.  While the dangers aren’t as immediately obvious, they do have an impact on our long-term health and ability to lift.

What sort of back problems? 

Sitting down all day can cause two connected problems:

• lumbar lordosis (where the lower back sags forward too much); and
• anterior pelvic tilt (which can lead to tight hip muscles)

Lumbar what?

Lumbar lordosis is where your lower back caves in and your belly sags forward.  Imagine an old Italian man at the beach in his speedos and you probably get the idea.

Sitting down regularly with poor posture, slumping in other words, causes your lower back to get more mobile and your hip muscles get shorter and tighter.  For more details on this, see Mike Robertson’s article on force couples.  Your upper back hunches over and, when you stand up, this causes your lower back to round inwards to compensate.

Anterior pelvic what?

Anterior pelvic tilt is an anatomical extension of lumbar lordosis to include the hips as well as the spine.  If you look at the angle of the pelvis of someone with lumbar lordosis, the pelvis is usually angled towards the ground in front of them.  So their hip muscles get shorter and tighter.

Typically, if they are wearing a belt, that means that their buckle at the front will be lower than the back of the belt. 

OK, but it’s hard to imagine.  Give us a picture.

Very well.  This is a picture of me at the beach, not concentrating on my posture.  You can see how my lower back is arching forwards really badly and my hips are tilted forwards.  I am going to start a programme to sort this out.  I need more hip mobility and more lumbar stability.

Why are lower back mobility and hip inflexibility bad?

They stop hip drive while weightlifting.

Lumbar lordosis and anterior pelvic tilt don’t allow the body to function in the way it is intended.  Most anatomists believe that the majority of the body’s explosive force should come from hip drive.  The pivot should be the hips.

The hips should be mobile and the surrounding joints and muscles should be stable.  This position allows the major muscles (glutes, quads, hamstrings) to contribute the most amount of force about the fulcrum. 

If you have lumbar lordosis and anterior pelvic tilt, the reverse is true.  You have a mobile lower back and tight hip muscles.  This means that what your body does to mimic hip drive is actually lower back or trunk drive.  Your knees probably have to move more too.  Lower back drive is a poor second cousin to hip drive in terms of power and it’s also generally believed to be bad for your health.  The lower back can only stand so much flexion and extension before it pops.

In particular, a mobile lower back makes it very hard for the glutes to provide any power.  It’s like having a baseball bat with a floppy handle.  Or something like that.

Further reading

I’m not an expert, so check out these great interviews with Mr Lower Back himself, Dr Stuart McGill:

• By Eric Cressey
• By Marc Demers Part 2
• By Marc Demers Part 1

What can be done about it?  

There are four main techniques that I am going to use to get some hip mobility back.  They are:

• Stretching
• Soft tissue work (e.g. foam rolling and rolling with a ball)
• Activation of glutes
• Strengthening of abdominals

I’ll do posts on each of these topics over the next couple of weeks as I sort my own corrective programme out.

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