Anterior Tilt and Pelvic Control

Is an anterior tilted pelvis throwing you off balance?

An anterior (or forward) tilted pelvis is very common amongst people who spend extended periods of time sitting down.  Sitting has the effect of either weakening or tightening the various muscle groups that would normally maintain a neutral pelvis position.  The problem for most amateur golfers is that many of them spend most of the week sitting down at their day jobs. 

An easy way to check your pelvis position is to look at your beltline whilst looking at your profile in a mirror.  Your belt should appear level, or parallel to the ground.  If it is tilted forward, you may have an anterior tilted pelvis.  If it angles back, you may have a posterior tilted pelvis.

It is common for golfers with this problem to set up with their weight favoring their heels at setup.  This is an instinctive reaction to the overbalance forward that occurs when they turn. Setting up with too much weight in the heels causes the upper body angle at set up to be too upright, encouraging the shoulders to turn on too flat a plane, which can create an underplane backswing. 

If the golfer does set up in a balanced position, they often come up out of their posture as they swing back to avoid overbalancing.  This can affect the hand path, clubhead path and shoulder plane and require the golfer to make compensations in the downswing, often in the form of an ‘over the top’ movement as the golfer instinctively moves the body back to its starting posture.

More importantly however, an anterior tilt pelvis leaves the golfer susceptible to lower back injury, (especially if it is paired with a reverse spine angle during the swing) because it increases the curve of the lower back. 

The good news is that because the pelvis is tilted because of lost muscle tone and muscle imbalance, it can be corrected with simple corrective exercises.  Now is the time to get your body screened and a corrective program underway if you think you may have a problem.  Your back will love you for it and you will play better golf! 

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