Wow! The video clip on the neutral pelvis generated more feedback to me personally then any other email I’ve ever sent. And not one of the emails disagreed with what I said.

I realize the video clip was short, so it certainly didn’t cover everything that could be covered on the neutral pelvis theory. In defense of the neutral pelvis concept, I would like to add that it can be used as both an evaluation tool and an exercise.

It is still a static event and it almost exclusively refers to pelvic rotation in the sagittal plane. But if we want someone to “find” a neutral pelvis that must mean that there pelvis is currently not neutral. Therefore, for them to move their pelvis into a neutral position they must have the appropriate lumbo-pelvic awareness. Moving into the neutral position will now give them a reference point from which to understand what their norm is.

Asking your client/athlete to find the neutral pelvis is in of itself a valuable learning tool. The ability to actually find this position by rotating from a previous position may be of more value than the neutral position itself. This is because even in a static position, the neutral pelvis or any static position is not meant to me held for extended periods of time. Could you imagine someone with a posterior rotation of their pelvis trying to actively hold a neutral pelvis for 15:00 while sitting at a desk? The work load of the spinal extensors would far exceed what this person was capable of. Without the contracting and relaxing of the spinal muscles from varying the positions, the tissue would become ischemic and metabolic byproducts would accumulate locally in the tissue resulting in noticeable discomfort for this person.

I’ll expand more about the artificial nature of holding a neutral pelvis during movement in my next video clip.

Keep the comments coming!