Poor posture and tilted pelvis

Hi All,

I have been practicing Bikram Yoga since November 2010 and have been practicing six times per week on average since February 2011. I am in a passionate love/hate/love relationship with Bikram Yoga and have even considered becoming a Bikram teacher (maybe next year?).

In December 2011 I learned that I have an anterior tilt to my pelvis with one side (my left) higher than the other which means I put about 4kg (!) more weight on my right foot when standing or walking. This makes it almost impossible to ‘lift up out of my waist’ and has caused a lot of problems with hips and groin area as this area is extremely tight and that in turn has caused problems with my knees and lower back. I also have a complete disconnect between my brain and my spine and I can NEVER tell if my spine is straight without looking. If I do manage to lift up out of my waist with my pelvis tucked under I realize I have completely stopped breathing and that does me no good at all! 🙁

The tilted pelvis means any posture where I need to tuck my bottom under and/or push my hips forward or lift up out of my waist or stretch up (half moon is extraordinarily hard for me) is a real struggle. I cannot really put my weight in my heels and keep it there and I suspect it has caused some issues with locking my knee, too. I have noticed recently that I am relying on my skeleton to hold me upright rather than muscle strength and I really want to change that!

I also have poor posture for a few reasons I know (and many I don’t, I am sure) but I am very large breasted and that makes holding up my torso difficult, too (forget forehead on the knee ;)). I am scheduled for breast reduction surgery in July of this year so I am hoping that will help significantly but I want to really work on my posture and strengthening my upper back in advance of the surgery. I also suspect that I won’t be able to work on just my lower back and hips without addressing my upper back issues, too. I’ve seen the video about elbows in back pockets and do that whenever I remember but it does tire out the muscles pretty swiftly (I know that will get better as I get stronger, though). 🙂

I don’t mean to sound as if I am a mess although I feel that way a lot lately with this back pain and hip tightness. I actually hyperextended both my left knee and hip in February 2011 (the day I quit the gym to use Bikram as my primary exercise, argh!) in standing bow because I was too busy thinking about how awesome I was at that posture to pay attention to doing it safely. Despite all my issues in class (and there are others I haven’t mentioned :)), my practice has come in on leaps and bounds and I am doing things I never imagined I could do when I first started but these issues are really getting me down lately. I’m not sure if there is anything I can do to help with the re-aligning my pelvis or loosening my hips but any help is much appreciated. 🙂

I’m not sure if this helps to mention, either, but I am really focusing on triangle to open my hips and I’ve started focusing more on how open my pelvis is instead of how low I sit down (I can only do one or the other at the minute but keep trying both every few classes). Tree is a struggle because I can tilt my pelvis forward but then I’m sitting on the bones instead of using my leg muscles to hold me upright (not sure if that makes sense or not?). I’ve also started squatting (outside of class) instead of bending over and trying to sit in a deep squat with my bottom almost on the floor and my heels on the ground and that’s made a big difference in hip tightness but not pelvic tilt. I may just need to carry on but patience has never been one of my virtues (I’m working on it, though!). 🙂

Thanks!

-Califia