2024-10-23

Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.

Tonight’s classes were fairly typical, but we ended up talking about pelvic muscle control to improve posture and stability.

Many students exhibit anterior pelvic tilt, which prevents the muscles of the legs and abdomen from all doing their part to stabilize the torso. It looks like the rear end is sticking out, but what’s really happening is the pelvis tends to want to adopt the angle of the rear leg rather than the angle of the spine.

The “cure” for this is to tense the glutes, rotate the underside of the pelvis forward, and tense the abdominal muscles downward (as opposed to inward), all at the same time. This is particularly difficult when students are already trying to master tensing and relaxing the arms, shoulders, and legs, but critical if you want to tie the body’s entire mass together.