Disclaimer: The following exercise is for educational purposes only. If you’re going to do the pelvic list exercise, you should be cleared by your doctor, especially if you have osteoporosis or a hip replacement. Everybody has different needs, and no one exercise stands on its own. The following is what I found helpful in learning the pelvic list.
Try this simple test to evaluate your femur position.
Pelvic List
- Make sure you start with proper foot alignment (and footwear), feet forward, outside edges of your feet straight, and your greater trochanter in line with your malleolus. Cool? (see image below). If you can’t do this without force, perhaps you should start with the calf stretch and transition slowly out of wearing positive-heeled shoes.
- Fully extend knees, no bent knees but not locked. If you can’t do this, perhaps you should start with the calf stretch and hamstring stretch.
- Relax the knee caps down. (stop clenching the quadriceps).
- Don’t twist the pelvis (ASIS face forward like headlights on a car)
- Don’t use quadratus lumborum to hike the hip up. The action is coming from the lateral hip.
- Don’t use a cat for support.
- The gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, and Tensor Fascia Lata, TFL are the prime muscles of movement in this exercise. So, you should feel the burn at the lateral side on the hip and slightly posterior of the weight-bearing leg. The TFL helps stabilize the hip and knee joints by putting tension on the iliotibial band. The gluteus minimus and gluteus medius stabilize the hip. Weakness in these muscles results in a dysfunctional gait pattern where the pelvis shifts laterally instead of aligning over the standing leg.
- Push the standing foot into the ground to clear the other foot. Another way to think about it is to push the earth away from you.
- Try to work up to one minute on each side at least three times a day.
- Do these while standing at your standing workstation, at the crosswalk while waiting for the walk signal, doing dishes, standing in line at the grocery store, in line at a concert….
See Plumb Line in Red.
Author: Barbara Horsley has more than 26 years of experience as a licensed massage therapist. She specializes in abdominal massage and Visceral Manipulation™ and is an NCBTMB-approved educator. In addition to being certified in abdominal massage, she also studied biomechanics and restorative exercise. She is also a Certified Women’s Herbal Educator and a graduate of the IWHI Perimenopause & Menopause Certificate Program.