The Pelvis: Pure and Simple

There has been a lot of talk recently about the importance of posture and core strength in running, or any sport/activity for that matter. This is great news! Posture IS really important and understanding your own posture is even more important. We see a lot of runners in clinic who present with postural deficiencies, especially in the pelvic region. Although, when we refer to posture, we do tend to talk about the spine as a whole, the pelvic region specifically can be addressed and usually contributes to more proper alignment.

The position of your pelvis can actually greatly affect your run technique. Whether the pelvis is in a tilted forward position or tilted backward position, this can affect the related muscles groups in the front or the back of the body. Depending on how your hold your posture while running, this can shut certain muscles off, and make other muscles work overtime; creating a large imbalance from back to front (and sometimes right to left).

You can always check out your own posture in a mirror, and this can often reveal poor postural positioning, but what’s hard for you to see is how you carry your posture during movement. The latter is much easier for another person (hopefully someone with a trained eye, e.g: therapist or maybe a coach), or a video camera to see. Capturing your movements, whether that be running or not, on screen really helps to visualize where they may be an issue or underlying weakness.

At The Runner’s Academy, these are some of the first things that we look at before we take a look at how your posture then reacts when we put you through some movement tests and video your run technique. Especially if you are finding yourself dealing with injury or failing to progress your run to the next level, your pelvis may give us an indication or the problem.