I have lordosis/APT and it causes me lower back pain. How do I cure this? Can anybody recommend me any good stretches? Currently I’m doing Warrior Lunges throughout the day. Thanks!
I’m not sure it can be corrected.
This is speaking as someone who has done 5 minutes of hip flexor stretching per side each day for 5 years, and has, for the past 2 years, done a steady diet of glute bridges, bird-dogs, side-lying clams, supine posterior pelvic tilts, planks, side-planks, squat-to-stand mobility drills, mountain climbers and lower back stretches.
I proceed this with 10 minutes of foam rolling the quads and hip-flexors, of course, and my strength training is entirely posterior-chain focused.
All of this and I’m still in the same degree of anterior pelvic tilt as when I started.
To be honest, I think nothing works to correct it.
Bulgarian Split Squats are great, along with like hyperextensions or something. I like to keep it simple.
Check out mobilitywod.com. He has some great stuff for hip mobility.
For the record, it is very correctable.
Thanks for the replies, both of you.
@alternate I’m very sure it can be corrected. Not completely, obviously (who would want a perfectly straight spine) but by a certain degree.
@howie424 Thanks for the recommendation. Will definitely look into it. Have you any success with this exercise, to cure your lordosis? If you had it.
You naturally want some lordosis of the lumbar spine. For the general population with an anterior pelvic tilt, it can be fixed with PPTs, SLRs, isometric hip ab/adduction and some general lower abdominal work. Many times low back pain (again in the general public) is caused by a combination of an anterior pelvic tilt and lack of hamstring flexibility (less than 90degrees).
If adding that to your routine doesn’t help in 4-6 weeks I would think that your routine may be causing some muscular imbalances.
[quote]rlBanda wrote:
You naturally want some lordosis of the lumbar spine. For the general population with an anterior pelvic tilt, it can be fixed with PPTs, SLRs, isometric hip ab/adduction and some general lower abdominal work. Many times low back pain (again in the general public) is caused by a combination of an anterior pelvic tilt and lack of hamstring flexibility (less than 90degrees).
If adding that to your routine doesn’t help in 4-6 weeks I would think that your routine may be causing some muscular imbalances.[/quote]
What are ppt’s and slr’s?
[quote]alternate wrote:
[quote]rlBanda wrote:
You naturally want some lordosis of the lumbar spine. For the general population with an anterior pelvic tilt, it can be fixed with PPTs, SLRs, isometric hip ab/adduction and some general lower abdominal work. Many times low back pain (again in the general public) is caused by a combination of an anterior pelvic tilt and lack of hamstring flexibility (less than 90degrees).
If adding that to your routine doesn’t help in 4-6 weeks I would think that your routine may be causing some muscular imbalances.[/quote]
What are ppt’s and slr’s?[/quote]
Yes, what are they? 
Still waiting on explanation for PPT’s and SLR’s.
However, as I understand it, almost no amount of rehab/rehab will ever reverse your anterior pelvic tilt (APT) if you have a sitting job.
If you sit for 8 hours a day, you would need to hold a glute-bridge/hip flexor stretch for at least 8 hours a day before you’re striking even, let alone reversing your APT. And then, to add to this, it is likely that you have years of sitting for 8 hours a day, and even holding glute-bridges/hip flexor stretches for 10 hours a day - it would take a lifetime of holding glute-bridges/hip flexor stretches for 10 hours a day to reverse the deficit.
It’s what we do outside the gym, not in the gym that has the biggest effect on our posture, and what we do outside of the gym has a cumulative effect.
Honestly, given the amount of sitting we do (and the amount of sitting we have all done in the past) - it would take a lifetime of corrective treatment to see a change in APT - even if we changed to do a more active job and dedicated our lives to holding glute bridges and hip flexor stretches.
With PPT’s and SLR’s, I’m assuming he is referring to Posterior Pelvic Tilts and Straight Leg Raises. It is fixable.
I wouldn’t quite say that if you sit for 8 hours a day, you need 8 hours a day of stretching to counterbalance. The body doesn’t quite work like that. Perhaps in the pure form of you are literally sitting for 8 hours straight a day then you may need quite a while longer of stretching to fix it, but I doubt that anyone sits for all 8 hours straight.
The body will adaptively shorten in specific positions but it doesn’t shorten by the second, it takes quite some time to get there. Also, your hip flexor stretches should be of greater intensity than the shortening that takes place when you sit. If you have a sitting job, I would recommend a few things:
-stand up as often as you can, take at least a ten minute break every hour if possible.
-look into making/getting a standing desk (a desk you can stand at) to do your work
-try to perform hip flexor stretches any time during the day that you can
-try not to sit down for all of your lunch break, in fact try not to sit at all during your lunch break if you can
As for the things to do to fix it, whenever you perform glute bridges, or any glute or low back work, you need to make sure that your spine is in neutral. Same goes for when you perform ab work. Many times, when performing ab work, people allow themselves to move into an anterior pelvic tilt and let the hip flexors substitute some of the work for the abs. This is something you have to work to not let happen. So before performing any ab work or glute work, posteriorly tilt your pelvic (squeezing your glutes and abs) and then perform the movement, not allowing your spine to move back into the anterior tilt. This also goes the same for the lunges and hip flexor stretches. Most people perform these stretches in APT. The hip flexors naturally want to pull you into APT when on stretch so you have to fight really hard to keep a neutral spine. If you’re keeping a truly neutral spine or even a slight PPT, I doubt that you will be even able to have your back leg behind you at all during a hip flexor stretch, if you’re APT is that severe.
Try those things out. To sum up, keep a neutral spine, even a slight PPT when performing hip flexor stretches, ab work, and glute work (not during loaded work such as deadlifts though).
And one last thing, try to perform your hamstring stretches up against a wall. Either sit back against a wall or, my preference, lay down and prop your legs up onto the wall. Better yet, get in a doorway and prop one leg up one the edge of the doorway and leg the other lay flat (flat as you can) through the doorway. Make sense?
Alternate you can better posture easily by just changing the chair you are sitting on for 8hours a day.
Consider saddleseats. And if you are drawing alot/ reading (other than computer) you should get an incline table, too.
@cscsDPT17 yes that’s what I was referring to. I need to lose the acronyms since they are not familiar to everyone. Great advice BTW.
Bushido Bad Boy had a very good thread about this at some point which basically centered on strengthening the “posterior pelvic tilt contributing” muscles as opposted to trying to “elongate or stretch” the APT contributing muscles. YOu can use the search function to find it I think. Basically make your abs and glutes/hammies real strong.
If you have ATP, I heard someone say it simply means you can’t deadlift enough?
If you can deadlift 600lbs, you won’t have anterior pelvic tilt, because your glutes will be strong then. If you can’t deadlift 600lbs, you will have ATP, because your glutes are weak.
So the way to cure ATP is to get a huge deadlift - work up to 600lbs?
However, although I have heard this advice, I question it, because I have seen some skinny women who are in PPT (posterior pelvic tilt) - and I don’t think they can deadlift 600lbs. Also, I think some powerlifters are in ATP.
Terrible advice in my opinion. Not one of the patients I saw with an APT with associated low back pain did any sort of deadlift for their rehab. You can make the argument that it is due to the fact that these patients are normal people with little to no work out experience, but there are better, quicker and safer ways to correct this.
What better way to correct anterior pelvic tilt than training muscles, and training HEAVY which work in the opposing direction. Heavy deadlift may benefit someone such as a lifter who may have incredibly strong/spasmodic hip flexors.
However while deadlifting activating the glute muscles is imperative for your rehab as lifting with predominately your back will possibly make your anterior pelvic tilt worse if the back extensors become overworked and tight; and probably preventing you from reaching a 600lb deadlift.
[quote]alternate wrote:
If you have ATP, I heard someone say it simply means you can’t deadlift enough?
If you can deadlift 600lbs, you won’t have anterior pelvic tilt, because your glutes will be strong then. If you can’t deadlift 600lbs, you will have ATP, because your glutes are weak.
So the way to cure ATP is to get a huge deadlift - work up to 600lbs?
However, although I have heard this advice, I question it, because I have seen some skinny women who are in PPT (posterior pelvic tilt) - and I don’t think they can deadlift 600lbs. Also, I think some powerlifters are in ATP.[/quote]
Posterior pelvic tilt is also a condition of it’s own. It’s caused by tight hamstrings, weak gluteals, weak hip flexors and weak lower back extensors. So yes you are correct the typical woman with a posterior pelvic tilt would be unable to deadlift very much at all.
[quote]Mr Stern wrote:
[quote]alternate wrote:
If you have ATP, I heard someone say it simply means you can’t deadlift enough?
If you can deadlift 600lbs, you won’t have anterior pelvic tilt, because your glutes will be strong then. If you can’t deadlift 600lbs, you will have ATP, because your glutes are weak.
So the way to cure ATP is to get a huge deadlift - work up to 600lbs?
However, although I have heard this advice, I question it, because I have seen some skinny women who are in PPT (posterior pelvic tilt) - and I don’t think they can deadlift 600lbs. Also, I think some powerlifters are in ATP.[/quote]
Posterior pelvic tilt is also a condition of it’s own. It’s caused by tight hamstrings, weak gluteals, weak hip flexors and weak lower back extensors. So yes you are correct the typical woman with a posterior pelvic tilt would be unable to deadlift very much at all.[/quote]
Surely the woman in posterior pelvic tilt must have strong glutes and abs, though - and weak hip flexors and errector spinae? She must have stronger glutes than a man who is in APT but can deadlift 400lbs, because the man in APT must have weak glutes, causing him to be in APT?
So the only solution for the man who deadlifts 400lbs but is in APT, is to keep deadlifting more and more, until eventually his glutes becoming strong enough to pull his pelvis back, so he’s no longer in APT? He may have to be able to deadlift 600lbs or more (heck, he may even have to break the deadlift world record) in order for his glutes to be strong enough to pull his pelvis back into neutral - but all he can really do is to keep increasing his deadlift, and eventually it’ll happen - isn’t that right?
[quote]alternate wrote:
[quote]Mr Stern wrote:
[quote]alternate wrote:
If you have ATP, I heard someone say it simply means you can’t deadlift enough?
If you can deadlift 600lbs, you won’t have anterior pelvic tilt, because your glutes will be strong then. If you can’t deadlift 600lbs, you will have ATP, because your glutes are weak.
So the way to cure ATP is to get a huge deadlift - work up to 600lbs?
However, although I have heard this advice, I question it, because I have seen some skinny women who are in PPT (posterior pelvic tilt) - and I don’t think they can deadlift 600lbs. Also, I think some powerlifters are in ATP.[/quote]
Posterior pelvic tilt is also a condition of it’s own. It’s caused by tight hamstrings, weak gluteals, weak hip flexors and weak lower back extensors. So yes you are correct the typical woman with a posterior pelvic tilt would be unable to deadlift very much at all.[/quote]
Surely the woman in posterior pelvic tilt must have strong glutes and abs, though - and weak hip flexors and errector spinae? She must have stronger glutes than a man who is in APT but can deadlift 400lbs, because the man in APT must have weak glutes, causing him to be in APT?
So the only solution for the man who deadlifts 400lbs but is in APT, is to keep deadlifting more and more, until eventually his glutes becoming strong enough to pull his pelvis back, so he’s no longer in APT? He may have to be able to deadlift 600lbs or more (heck, he may even have to break the deadlift world record) in order for his glutes to be strong enough to pull his pelvis back into neutral - but all he can really do is to keep increasing his deadlift, and eventually it’ll happen - isn’t that right?[/quote]
Sorry not sure why I wrote weak glutes.
Anyways strength is a relative thing. You say a woman in posterior pelvic tilt will have strong abdominals (external obliques). This may or may not be the case. If her hamstrings are tighter/more active than her back extensors then that could be enough to cause posterior pelvic tilt. It doesn’t however mean she has stronger glutes than a 400lb deadlifter.
The 400lb deadlifter in anterior pelvic tilt will probably have stronger glutes than the woman in posterior pelvic tilt (although in some circumstances what you said could be true). It’s more of a relative thing for the deadlifter. His glutes weak relatively weaker than his back extensors, hipflexors etc hence the position of anterior pelvic tilt.
[quote]Mr Stern wrote:
[quote]alternate wrote:
[quote]Mr Stern wrote:
[quote]alternate wrote:
If you have ATP, I heard someone say it simply means you can’t deadlift enough?
If you can deadlift 600lbs, you won’t have anterior pelvic tilt, because your glutes will be strong then. If you can’t deadlift 600lbs, you will have ATP, because your glutes are weak.
So the way to cure ATP is to get a huge deadlift - work up to 600lbs?
However, although I have heard this advice, I question it, because I have seen some skinny women who are in PPT (posterior pelvic tilt) - and I don’t think they can deadlift 600lbs. Also, I think some powerlifters are in ATP.[/quote]
Posterior pelvic tilt is also a condition of it’s own. It’s caused by tight hamstrings, weak gluteals, weak hip flexors and weak lower back extensors. So yes you are correct the typical woman with a posterior pelvic tilt would be unable to deadlift very much at all.[/quote]
Surely the woman in posterior pelvic tilt must have strong glutes and abs, though - and weak hip flexors and errector spinae? She must have stronger glutes than a man who is in APT but can deadlift 400lbs, because the man in APT must have weak glutes, causing him to be in APT?
So the only solution for the man who deadlifts 400lbs but is in APT, is to keep deadlifting more and more, until eventually his glutes becoming strong enough to pull his pelvis back, so he’s no longer in APT? He may have to be able to deadlift 600lbs or more (heck, he may even have to break the deadlift world record) in order for his glutes to be strong enough to pull his pelvis back into neutral - but all he can really do is to keep increasing his deadlift, and eventually it’ll happen - isn’t that right?[/quote]
Sorry not sure why I wrote weak glutes.
Anyways strength is a relative thing. You say a woman in posterior pelvic tilt will have strong abdominals (external obliques). This may or may not be the case. If her hamstrings are tighter/more active than her back extensors then that could be enough to cause posterior pelvic tilt. It doesn’t however mean she has stronger glutes than a 400lb deadlifter.
The 400lb deadlifter in anterior pelvic tilt will probably have stronger glutes than the woman in posterior pelvic tilt (although in some circumstances what you said could be true). It’s more of a relative thing for the deadlifter. His glutes weak relatively weaker than his back extensors, hipflexors etc hence the position of anterior pelvic tilt.
[/quote]
So even if that 600lbs deadlifter in APT never did any work to strengthen his hip flexors, he’d still have stronger hip flexors than glutes?
[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
Bushido Bad Boy had a very good thread about this at some point which basically centered on strengthening the “posterior pelvic tilt contributing” muscles as opposted to trying to “elongate or stretch” the APT contributing muscles. YOu can use the search function to find it I think. Basically make your abs and glutes/hammies real strong.[/quote]
Does anyone know this thread? I can’t seem to find it. Thanks a lot!