Dude, Your Hip is Higher on One Side

​This woman obviously looks like she is in shape, and she may or may not have a lateral pelvic tilt.  

Lateral pelvic tilt simply means that one of your pelvis is higher than the other. (This is different than a leg-length discrepancy because how far up the femur is in the socket can influence this.)

In this article, we’ll explore some postural corrections if you have a lateral pelvic tilt due to your posture.  There is another possibility which we will explore in my next article. We'll also cover the strength training corrections in the next article as well.  

Our corrections here will entail checking your alignment and correcting all the postural positions which could be contributing or causing it. 

Our first test is going to directly assess the pelvic rim using our hands.  Make sure both feet are together and that one foot is not in front of the other. 

Using your palms, make sure that you don’t tickle the hell out of your client because if you go with fingers digging into the sides, it’s not comfortable.  If you use your palms at first, they will be a lot less likely to be tickled. 

​You can either use your palms or fingers to go into the sides of the pelvis.  From here, you can use your middle fingers (or palms if they can’t tolerate the middle fingers), to see how your fingers line up.  If you find they are equal, great!  You’re done, and can move onto another assessment.  

If you find there is a half inch difference or greater, you need to correct it.  

The second assessment you need to perform is simply standing with your legs wide.  If you find that your pelvis becomes completely level or significantly improves, you should continue with the postural recommendations below.  If however you find there is no change, check out the next article.  

The corrections are simple.  The first is standing. Let’s assume you have an elevated left pelvis. To correct this, we are simply going to try to stand like this as often as we can.  ​

As you can imagine, if you had an elevated right pelvis, you are going to stand like this as often as possible. 

I think you get the idea.  Let's assume you had an elevated left pelvis. You can use a small folded up towel to put under your left ischial tuberosity.  

You wouldn't even be able to tell that you are sitting on the pad.  Here is something you need to be careful of however.  

​Since we sit so much, I've found myself and clients can ruin or efforts if we tend to lean to one side or the other. Sometimes, having a pad under our right side can cue us to lean to the left like this: 

Avoid this position and make sure to sit straight up.  You can literally ruin your efforts, because this position effectively puts us back in an elevated left pelvic position which we do not want. 

​The last position we are concerned with is our lying posture.  

For those with wide hips and a small torso, this can be a real problem.  It can be even more of a problem if you only sleep on one side or the other.  One of the best ways to stay neutral is to sleep on both sides.  If you can't however, one thing you can do is to use a pillow under your torso like this:  

Lastly, some people simply like to lean to one side or the other when they are lying down.  This can lead to a lateral pelvic tilt.  It simply feels more comfortable to them.  If you can get a picture of yourself, you might look like this: 

To correct this, you need to try to get into the opposite posture. It will feel weird.  In fact, all of your new postures should feel strange and unfamiliar at first.  It's because you don't do them.  By making sure that you address all of your main postures, you will get out of lateral pelvic tilt.