Hey folks - I was thinking about this today. When someone with a rotated pelvis does a lunge-style hip flexor stretch… if they stay upright, the pelvic tilt quickly begins to create pressure with the spine as the range of the stretch increases. The possible solution is to lean forward, but that kind of defeats the nature of the stretch. Anyone have any ideas on what can be done to compensate for the pelvic tilt.
Dark Renegade, I remember you mentioning someone you were training working on something similar.
Hmmmmmm. I do have a couple of people with different hip issues. Infact I believe most everyone neglects their hips. I son’t know where your problem came from but most likely from months if not years of sitting or standing in such a way as to create the imbalance. First things first… Your body is a sword made from a steel like substance(will). You must stick this sword in a fire(jacuzzi, tub, garage in middle of hot day,etc) Then you pound out every little imperfection you can find. Repeat daily if necessary. I encourage people to “sneak” up on the point of tension. For instance, your pelvis is screaming but it may be from a slight pull in the hammy which caused the other quad to over compensate and next thing your know your pelvis is going through some kind of medevil torture as if tied to four horses all set to take off in different directions. So. When you have an injury such as yours, your main training protocol should be to stretch in no less than 100 degrees. I am not talking about touching your toes a couple of times. Get your ass to the library and get a Bikram’s yoga book and do every stretch in the book to its fullest for 1-2 hours everyday, twice a day if you can. You’ve got to iron out the entire shirt, you know how dumb it looks to have only one big wrinkle on a shirt, might as well have worn it without ironing it. Your pelvis is so crucial that training will never be what it could be for you until you can balance out your midd section. Good luck. Pain you can inflict on yourself for postive results or you can wait to have the world inflict pain on you for negative results.
Dark Renegade - Thanks for that advice. Curiously enough, I did start looking up some yoga things today and noticed one of the Warrior poses (I forget the proper name) is exactly like one of the Static Stretches Coach Davies employs in his routine.
Anyways, I’ve been duck-footed for as long as I could remember, and only in the last couple years did I realize it had nothing to do with my feet genetically wanting to aim out, but more to with dysfunctional body mechanics stemming from overly shortened muscles and a pretty lax childhood. I’ll take your advice to heart though, and get started on the bookwork when I wake up later this morning, then stretch it ASAP after.
Franks. I kid you not when I say you will marvel at your level of strength and balance with properly aligned hips, which it sounds like to have a ways to go. Don’t worry hot yoga type static stretching and dynamic stretching such as hurdle work will bring even the worst of cases around
Don’t perform any bilateral or unilateral leg work until the muscle tension issue is resolved. Spend more time stretching the problematic side. If you train with tension descrepancies its not a matter of if you get hurt, its a manner of when you’ll get hurt.