Shakira’s hips don’t lie… they’ve got an incredible range of motion in all directions. She’s got the ability to control her tilts - lateral, anterior, posterior and everything in between! Let’s talk about yours, you sexy thing!
What’s a Lateral Pelvic Tilt and Why Does it Matter?
Do your hips hurt? What about your low back?
We all want (and need) to be able to tilt, twist, shimmy and shake our hips - all without pain. We most certainly don’t want to live in a chronic state of unevenness.
Uneven hips, known in the medical community as having a “lateral pelvic tilt,” happen when one hip sits higher than the other one. Most people have uneven hips because they function in a way that puts uneven pressure on their pelvis.
While this can be caused by a diagnosed, significant leg length discrepancy or scoliosis, hip asymmetry is most often due to poor posture, lack of body awareness, and/or excessive muscle tightness.
When poor posture becomes your ‘normal’ and you sit or stand in the same default position every day - for months and years on end - your muscles are going to be affected. Some will get shorter and tighter, while others will weaken.
Imbalances like these may make one hip appear higher or lower than the other.
How Do Uneven Hips Affect Your Posture?
Uneven hips throw everything off. That pelvis of yours affects how you sit, stand, and move. If you have low back pain, your pelvic position could be a culprit.
Uneven hips can cause low back pain if your core muscles or spine stabilizing muscles must overcompensate for an imbalance.
According to the American Hip Institute, it’s very common to have imbalanced hips. It may start small and unnoticeable, but at some point you’ll realize you’ve got a problem.
Fortunately, you can do something about it!
UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSE OF UNEVEN HIPS
There are several causes of uneven hips (remember everything in your body is interconnected):
- Scoliosis.
- Lifting incorrectly in the gym.
- Difference in the length of your legs.
- Poor posture (causes your muscles to shorten).
- Tight Quadratus Lumborum (QL for short).
- Carrying a purse or heavy bag on one shoulder.
- Tight Adductors (groin muscles).
- Weak Glute Medius.
- Fallen arches in your feet.
It becomes a vicious cycle. Weak and tight muscles lead to uneven hips and poor posture. Poor posture leads to more weakness, tightness, and pain that will cause you to compensate. That leads to further postural imbalances and on and on.
WHAT SHOULD HEALTHY HIPS LOOK LIKE?
- From a front and back view, your pelvis should be level and parallel to the ground. Neither hip bone should be higher than the other.
- From a side view, your hips should be in a neutral position, not overly tilted one way or another. Too much posterior tilt will look like a flat or tucked butt. Too much anterior tilt will look like a “booty pop” with excessive arch in the low back.
TEST FOR UNEVEN HIPS
If standing in front of a mirror to see if you have uneven hips didn’t quite work for you, try one of these tests.
TRENDELENBURG GAIT
Test for a lateral hip drop. Stand in front of a mirror or have a friend take a video of you. Lift one leg so your knee and foot are parallel to the floor and hold that pose for 30 seconds. Then repeat this motion on your other leg.
If one side of your pelvis tilted downwards instead of upwards on the non-weight bearing leg (or lifted leg), then this could be a sign that there’s a hip abductor weakness, which can result in uneven hips.
SQUAT TEST
For this test, you’re going to want to perform a squat. You should be looking for any shifting left to right.
You can squat in front of a mirror, but it’ll be easier to detect if you have a friend filming you from behind (or set your camera up to film yourself).
If you see your hips shift towards one side (particularly on the drive up out of the squat) rather than staying centered, it’s likely a sign that you have a strength imbalance.
HOW DO YOU FIX UNEVEN HIPS?
To fix your uneven hips, you need to both strengthen weak muscles and stretch/mobilize tight muscles.
You also need to increase your body awareness. It’s so easy to just mindlessly go through your day, but start paying attention to how you sit, how you stand, and how you carry things like backpacks.
Are you rounding or hunching forward? Do you have your weight placed onto one foot more than the other? Are your hips tilted or shifted over toward one side more than the other?
Let’s fix that sh*t!
EXERCISES FOR UNEVEN HIPS
Single leg exercises are going to be your best friend when it comes to correcting imbalances in the hips. Step ups on a box, single leg lunges, single leg RDLs, and single leg balancing movements will help create more strength and stability in the hip joint.
Here are two of our favorite exercises anyone can do to improve hip mobility and strengthen your glute muscles:
THE CLAMSHELL
- Set up on a firm surface. Lie down on one side with both legs bent at a 90-degree angle. Use your arm or a yoga block/pillow to support your head.
- Gently brace your core and align your spine. You want to avoid slumping the center of your body toward the floor.
- Find a neutral pelvis. This is the ‘sweet spot’ between overly arched and overly rounded.
- Keeping your feet pressed together, raise the top knee. This is like opening a book or a clam shell.
- Hold for 5 seconds in that open position and then lower your knee.
- Repeat for 8-15 repetitions.
- Be sure not to shift or roll back, keep hips stacked.
Repeat on the other side. Aim for 3 rounds.
HIP HIKES
Believe it or not, if you’ve got a chronically laterally tilted pelvis, more pelvis tilts can be the solution!
- Start standing on a firm surface and let one leg hang off. If your foot is small enough, you can use a yoga block but a stair, bench, or curb will be more stable.
- As with the clamshells, find a neutral pelvis - that ‘sweet spot’ between overly arched and overly rounded.
- From there, let that heel sink down toward the ground, thus lowering your hip on one side.
- Then do the opposite: drive the supported foot into the ground and raise the opposite hip up as much as you can. Make sure your knees stay straight as you do this.
You should feel a lot of muscle burn in the glutes and maybe even the QL muscle.
STRETCHES FOR UNEVEN HIPS
Here is some mobility work you can do to reduce tightness in the areas that support your hips and pelvis.
Deep Tissue Psoas Release
The psoas muscle can get tight and often benefits from some deep tissue massage. You can use a tennis ball for this to do the release yourself.
If you don’t have a ball…
- Find a partner who doesn’t mind getting right in there.
- Lay flat on your back and simply have your partner press down with gradually increasing pressure with three fingers into your psoas. Your job is to try to breathe through it.
- Your partner should then work their way down the psoas muscle along the front of the hip, each time pressing down quite firmly. If tolerable, have them wiggle around on that muscle a bit.
- Remember to keep taking slow, full breaths. You want to try to relax your muscles, after all!
Final tip: If you’re not sure if your partner is in the right place, lift your leg. If your partner feels a bulge under their fingers, you’re in the right place.
CHILD’S POSE QL STRETCH
This modified child’s pose stretch will stretch the Quadratus Lumborum (QL) muscle, which is often tight on people with lateral hip tilt.
- Kneel on the floor, sit back toward your heels, and send your upper body to the floor with arms reaching overhead and forehead resting on the ground. This is commonly referred to as “child’s pose”.
- Now take a deep breath and crawl your fingers to one side, feeling a nice stretch in the lower back and side muscles. Hang out here for several slow breaths.
- Walk your fingers to the opposite side and repeat.
Tip: For a deeper stretch, anchor a band to the wall or leg of a couch and allow it to pull you into a deeper stretch.
FIX YO HIP-PY SH*T!
To fix your hips for good, join the MoveU Membership. Our community is full of people just like Karly here. Her first photo was taken at the beginning of her journey. The second image was taken only 90 days after. LET’S GO!
