Anterior Pelvic Tilt

One of the most common effects of spending too much time sitting down is an anterior tilted pelvis. For those of you who spend most of your work week at a desk and do not spend a lot of time exercising, chances are you will have some degree of anterior pelvic tilt. This basically means that the front of your pelvis is lower than the back of your pelvis when you are standing upright. When you spend a lot of time sitting, you are not using your abdominals and glutes, so they get weaker and are no longer tight enough to hold your pelvis in a natural position. This causes your body to be out of balance and can be a major source of lower back pain. If you are a golfer, it can also be the cause of the following common swing faults:

• Loss of posture – causing you to stand up when you take the club back, resulting in either a blocked shot to the right or a hook to the left.
• Early extension – causing your waist and hips to shift closer to the ball on your downswing, resulting in the feeling of “getting stuck,” producing a blocked shot to the right or a hook to the left.
• Over the top – not being able to rotate around your spine properly, you will take the club too far to the inside creating an over the top swing, resulting in either a pull to the left or a slice to the right.
• Sway or Slide – because of the restricted hip mobility, you may sway on the backswing or slide your hips past your front foot on the downswing.

The easiest, but not necessarily the most accurate, way to evaluate if you have an anterior tilt problem is to look at your profile in the mirror. You can start by looking at your beltline. Does it seem to slope forward or is it level? You can also look at your overall body line from your shoulders down to your ankles. Is it a straight line down your torso, through your hips and thighs, or does the line curve backwards as it goes through your waist and hips? If it does curve, can you get the line to straighten out by sucking in your stomach and tightening your abs and glutes, tilting your pelvis more level? For a more accurate evaluation, consider going to a physical therapists or personal trainer.

Golf fitness is about getting your body back in balance so that you can swing properly and feel better. If your body is out of balance due to a forward tilting pelvis, you will need to do regular exercises to strengthen your abdominals, especially your lower abdominals, and your glute muscles. Doing this consistently for a month or two will get your pelvis in a more natural position and will help improve your golf swing.