The Hips and How they Can Affect Kyphosis

Many rehabilitation "experts" would have you believe that if you strengthen your scapular retractors/depressors and stretch a little, your kyphotic posture problems would vanish. This is far from the truth. Instead of focusing on the true culprit in many cases (e.g. an anterior pelvic tilt), they focus only on the problem, not the actual cause of the problem. This local approach may work in some instances, but by failing to address the true cause, the problem will usually reoccur once rehabilitative exercise has ceased.

Anterior pelvic tilt is quite often the culprit. When you have a severe anterior pelvic tilt, the upper body has a tendency to overcompensate. Think about your spine as an "S" that must be equal on both the top and bottom. If the bottom half of the S is small and thin, the upper part will be small and thin as well. This is how a normal spine should look. However, if the bottom part of the S is very wide, the top part of the S will have to be very wide as well to compensate and balance out the bottom. Therefore, you can do all the upper body exercises and stretches you want, but until you solve the problem at the hips your results will probably always be sub-par.

So what if your hips are the problem; what can you do about it? Usually people who have issues with their hips have signs of either pelvic crossed or layer syndrome. When someone exhibits an anterior pelvic tilt, the hip flexor muscles (psoas and iliacus) are usually very tight and overactive. The psoas is usually the culprit here. Since it originates from the lumbar spine, hypertonicity and tightness create an increase in anterior pelvic tilt, which then creates a disruption throughout the low body and trunk.

This overactivity causes an inhibition of the hip extensors, primarily the glutes. When the glutes are inhibited, you often see other extensor muscle groups such as the spinal erectors or hamstrings take on the added workload left over by the inhibited glutes. Think about it: how often do you hear about someone pulling their low back or hamstrings? It’s probably an everyday occurrence in some of the larger gyms. Now think about how often you hear of someone who pulled a glute… probably not often, if ever. Not only do the hamstrings and low back have to take over an increased workload, but they also tend to get tight in the process.

Last on the list, but certainly not least, is the abdominals. If their strength isn’t up to par and the low back is shortened and tight, you have an even greater increase in lordosis. So what’s the basic premise here? Stretch the hip flexors, hamstrings and low back, while working on increasing activation and strength in the abs and glutes. Decreasing your anterior pelvic tilt can go a long way in improving your upper body posture with no direct work for the upper body whatsoever.

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Mike Robertson

Squats and Your IT Band

I've been having some ITB pain. From what I read squatting makes this worse
- is there something I could subsititute for squats that wouldn't irritate
it? How do I prevent this problem in the future?

It's a little bit more complicated than just "not squatting" - there's
probably some underlying issues that need to be addressed.

Firstly, I'm not sure what you're doing for "core" training, but check out
my "Core Training for Smart Folks" article on T-Nation. If you are going to
do core exercises, start with those.

Next, since you're running you need to focus on stretching/foam rolling your
hip flexors, quads, TFL and ITB as often as possible. These are the areas
that get short/stiff due to running and most weight training programs; this
will pull your pelvis into anterior tilt, and, well, it gets messy from
there. Just trust me when I say it leads to a cascade of events and
eventually you're screwed up in all three planes of movement! ;)

Beyond that, focus on a lot of gluteal work - glute bridges, long-stride
lunges, single-leg RDL's, pull-throughs, etc. Generally when people have
ITB issues there's an imbalance in strength between the TFL and the glute
max; balance what's going on at the hip and the ITB issues will typically
follow suit.

Mike Robertson

The Posterior Pelvic Tilt

You mentioned the importance of posterior pelvic tilt when doing the dead bug series, leg lowering, etc.

Should I also keep posterior pelvic tilt when doing front planks?

The goal isn’t so much posterior pelvic tilt for the sake of posterior pelvic tilt. Most people need this in these particular exercises because they have such a large degree of anterior pelvic tilt.

Perform all these exercises with the end-goal in mind: A neutral pelvic tilt. Once you’ve achieved this statically, the goal is to have the core stability to maintain this optimal alignment when lifting (e.g. squatting, deadlifting, etc.). This will allow you to engage the glutes in the bottom of these exercises. Better glute activation/control/strength will lead to more balanced and efficient lifting, as well as improved performance.

Mike Robertson

The Extensor Reflex

The Extensor Reflex

I’ve had numerous e-mails coming in over recent weeks with regards to the extensor reflex, so I figured I better take an entire blog post to help better explain it.

The extensor reflex is a very natural thing. Try this first while sitting down.

Sit up tall and tuck the chin down so the neck is in a neutral alignment. From this position, slowly extend the head/neck further and further back. You’ll begin to feel tension in your upper thoracics, and as you continue to extend the head/neck, it will move all the way down into your lower erectors. This, in effect, is the extensor reflex – when you extend the head/neck, much of the posterior chain will follow.

Now, let’s take this a step further and examine a squat.

When you squat, the goal is to keep the chest up throughout the movement. Generally, lifters will do this by not only “puffing” the chest out, but extending the head and neck. In some regards this is great – it will help you maintain an arch in your back and typically keeps you from getting caved over in the hole. But what’s the downside here?

If you’re like the majority of the population, you probably suffer from some degree of anterior pelvic tilt. As you go down into the hole, if you continuously extend your head and neck, you increase your lordosis and assume a position of even greater anterior pelvic tilt. This situation has a tendency to take your glutes out of the lift, and make it a much more quad/low back dominant lift. You’ll see this quite often in powerlifters (myself included!).

Contrast this with the neutral head/neck alignment of Olympic lifters. By maintaining a more neutral neck position, the hips do the same – they stay more neutral as well. This position allows for more freedom into the hole, as well as more strength out of it via increased glute/hip drive.

One of the common questions I get is this: If your glutes are a hip extensor, aren’t they engaged via the extensor reflex?

The simple answer here is no.

Think of it like this; when you extend the head/neck and engage the extensor reflex, your dominant extensors will tend to do the work. In other words, your hamstrings, low back and possibly even your adductor magnus will take on the brunt of the workload. It’s not just the extensor reflex, but what’s going on at the pelvis as well. The greater the degree of anterior pelvic tilt, the harder it will be to engage the gluteals.

Here’s a small section from the text Starting Strength – if you haven’t read it yet, it’s quite possibly the premier text on lifting technique and a must buy. Purchase it at Elite Fitness Systems.

“If we realize that hip drive is critical to power out of the bottom of the squat, the rest is easy. Try this: Assume a good deep bottom position as described earlier, with the knees out, toes out, and heels down. Put the chin down slightly and look at a point on the floor five or six feet in front of you. Now drive your hips up out of the bottom, and make note of how this feels. Now do the same thing while attempting to look at the ceiling. You will discover an amazing thing – that chin-down (looking down keeps the chin down) with the neck in a normal anatomical position facilitates hip drive. It facilitates chest-up, the normal anatomical position for the thoracic spine under load, and this is also a good thing.

And correct chest position is an important factor in placing the lumbar spine in the correctly extended, slightly arched position. Correct lumbar position is essential for full utilization of the hamstrings and glutes out of the bottom, because when they are stretched more completely they can contract more completely and generate more power over a longer range (more on this later). So bad neck position sets up a series of bad positions that greatly diminishes the safety and effectiveness of the squat.”

I hope that gives you a greater understanding of the extensor reflex and how it works. Work on maintaining a more neutral neck alignment in all your lower body lifts and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some major progress in the weights you’re lifting!

Stay strong
MR