Asian Squats Good for Anterior Pelvic Tilt?

Training Injuries
1

Hello, i’m trying to stop my knees from maltracking as i get what i think is knee tendonitis if i run to much and also my whole legs seem to tighten up from what i believe is APT.

I’ve been bombing my body with hip thrusts, planks, reverse crunches,calf stretches, clams, quad stretches and loads of hip flexor stretching. Sigh. I recently started hamstring strengthening rather than stretches. But the knees still click and my lower back still arches inward. So i’m on a mission to correct my APT and eliminate that first. I have rounded shoulders neck pointed forward and havent been targeting upper body to correct this as yet.

I’ve never been able to squat properly, eg cannot squat down without my heels off the ground and feel like i’m falling backwards. I’m 6ft tall and long legged though. In fact i injured my lower back years ago doing a squat because i cannot squat properly due to APT i think. I can feel a squishy disk between one of my vertebrae and the lower back always feels tight, but it doesnt affect me to go running or exercise apart from the knees of an evening if i overdo it and tight legs.

I now think its more a tight lower back issue so i’d like to try and massage the back and do more strengthening of the abs.

If i hold the position of an asian squat (whilst holding something to stop me falling backwards) will this stretch my lower back, stretch my hips and help cure the APT ? EG i’m thinking if i cant get in a prOper asian squat maybe its something i should sit in as it could make me more flexible ?? Or would an asian squat make the APT worse ?

Any advice much appreciated !!

2

I don’t know if your knee problem is caused by your anterior pelvic tilt, but generally when the patella doesn’t track well, the problem is an abnormal frontal plane (hip ab/adduction) or transverse plane (hip internal/external rotation) motion, not an abnormal sagittal plane motion. Patellar tracking can also be affected by how your feet hit the ground when you run.

To answer your question though, stretching your low back is usually not a good idea because you want your low back tight and stable. (I am assuming that when you do an Asian squat, your low back flattens out or even rounds.) It would be better to stretch your hip flexors (as you’ve been doing), and strengthen your abs and glutes.

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Mike, thanks for the reply. I’ll keep that in mind and i’m going to up the abs exercises.

With my knee clicking they click harder the more i have my leg held out to horizontal. I’ve only been doing bodyweight exercises at the moment but my waistband still hangs down so not sure what if any progress i’m making.

With regards to my groin/adductors, would strengthening OR stretching be of any help or would they not play a part in APT ?

Cheers

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Adductor magnus (the biggest one) also helps extend the hip, so theoretically strengthening it would decrease APT. You should probably focus on movements instead of muscles though. If you do hip extension exercises, you will recruit the muscles that will increase your posterior pelvic tilt without having to worry about them individually.