Warm-up for the Overextended

It's pretty common to see people walking around with the devastating condition of anterior pelvic tilt (it probably sounds scarier than it actually is). These poor souls end up with overextended lumbar spines that can cause a lot of strain on the lower back. Some people never have any serious issues with it, while others may experience significant pain or injuries. If you fall into this category of the overextended it's important to keep some of the factors in mind and begin to start neutralizing your spinal position. A good preparation before a training session can help put your body in a better position to smash big weights, stick jumps cleaner, and stay injury-free. So how do you do it?

Step 1: Lengthen the Tight Muscles Cranking on Your Spine The hip flexor muscles, including the psoas, illiopsoas, and rectus femoris tend to tighten up and create this duck-like appearance of overextension.

So whip out your foam rollers and lacrosse balls and loosen up your hips and quads. These hip flexors get a lot of attention for being the culprits behind the swayback posture, but they don't work alone. The lats are a significant accomplice to this less-than-ideal spinal curvature. Because the lats attach so low on the back, they can yank on the spine and worsen the situation, so be sure your lats get some foam rolling love as well.

Step 2: Mobilize Stiff Joints A key component to positioning your spine into a better alignment is thoracic spine mobility. A hyperlordodic posture is often acccompanied by a rounded upper back, so get some t-spine extension work in. Some good ones include t-spine extensions on a foam roller, quadruped extension rotation, side lying windmills, and t-spine dips.

Then go ahead and loosen the hips as well with some hip flexor mobs, adductor dips and adductor rockbacks. Hurdle drills are also great for getting the hips moving.

Step 3: Turn on the Posterior Tilters Being stuck in anterior pelvic tilt is not solely created by tight muscles, but also the failure of the antagonists to pull things back into place. Two of the most important muscles needed to tilt your pelvis back towards neutral are the glutes and the abdominals. These two muscle groups are your soldiers in the war against overextension. Get them going with plank variations, reverse crunches, and glute bridge variations. I think this is a great place to add half-kneeling anti-rotation presses. With this exercise you tighten up your abs to resist rotation all while contracting your glute and providing a stretch for the hip flexor on the same side. A win-win-win situation.