Pelvic Proprioception: It’s All In The Hips!

You often hear how important it is to activate the glutes during running, but have you ever tried, simply speaking? It's not as easy as it sounds. But what if you just spend a bunch of hours in the gym doing leg presses, squats and deadlifts to make the hips stronger? Unfortunately, that doesn't translate to running as seamlessly as you think. Research shows that, without neuromuscular retraining, strengthening these muscle groups will not lead to a change in movement patterns.1 You can spend a bunch of time isolating certain muscle groups but that won't help you run any better. You need to train movement patterns, not muscles.

Jay Dicharry, a physical therapist and author of Running Rewired makes one of my favorite analogies: You can't make toast if your toaster isn't plugged in”. Heavy squats and deadlifts won't fix the problem. It’s just like cramming more bread into the toaster that isn't plugged in. Change requires teaching the brain and body to reprogram movement patterns. 

Running gait is reflexive and habitual. Altering any motor pattern that has become habituated over many years can be difficult, especially considering a runner who runs 20 miles a week. At 1000 steps per mile, this individual can log over 1 million foot strikes per year. But the beautiful thing about the brain is its plasticity. You can modify your form, but you must work on coordinating extra input from the brain into your normal movement patterns. At first, it requires complete, conscious focus on the task. Over time, the new movement pattern can become fully rewired into the brain and reflexive. Altering a motor pattern like this takes both guidance, practice and patience to alter.1

Pelvic Proprioception

So this brings us to our topic of the hips and pelvic proprioception. Proprioception is our sense of the body's position and orientation in space. We use this feedback to move all the time. Activating the glutes during running gait initially requires one to be able to sense how the pelvis is moving in space. I think of the hips as both the steering wheel of the lower body and the fulcrum upon which our core is balanced. Pelvic proprioception requires both glute and core input, adequate mobility and stability.

During running gait, the glutes are supposed to effectively fire concentrically as you extend your hip and push off the ground behind you. In an ideal world, it is reflexive and subconscious (you don’t think about it). But for most of us in our sedentary culture, we require extra input. However, it's not as easy as just 'thinking' about squeezing your glutes. And doing a bunch of single legs squats in the gym will not magically plug them in when you run.

A runner's ability to effectively activate the posterior hip depends not only on adequate neurons going to the muscle, but also the position of the pelvis. The ability to properly extend the hip at this late stance phase of gait will determine how inhibited or accessible the glutes are. The pelvis moves in three planes of motion when we walk and run. A lot of focus these days involves minimizing pelvic movement in the frontal plane, what we think of as hip drop or pelvic drop (gluteus medius strengthening, anyone?). But we forget that pelvic rotation in the transverse plane is equally as important. A study involving robotic gait assistive devices reduced these pelvis rotations and found that stride length, step length, and gait velocity were significantly reduced while stance phase was increased2. Pelvic rotation is critical for healthy gait and improved performance.

Pelvic rotation in the transverse plane – as your knee drives out in front of you, your ipsilateral hip should follow

So how does this work?

Proper pelvic rotation requires adequate hip extension and hip internal rotation in this extended position. Think of the body as a dreidel spinning in place. That is essentially how your pelvis should rotate around your spine when you run and walk, back and forth around a vertical axis. If your pelvis doesn't move the way it's supposed to either due to mobility restrictions or motor control issues, your body is going to look for that movement elsewhere (i.e. the hip joints themselves, the lumbar spine, excessive arm swing, etc), which can create overuse injuries over time. A lack of mobility and motor control at the hip and pelvis will also inhibit a runner’s ability to extend the hip properly, thus diminishing the chances of firing the glutes effectively. 

Why is pelvic rotation important? By thinking about the hips moving forward with the knee and the body, you reduce any excessive vertical oscillation (up and down bouncing that takes away from the forward momentum of the body)3. Not only does it allow you to effectively use the glutes during push-off, but by rotating your hip around the vertical axis each time you drive your knee forward, you can actually gain 1-4 inches with each stride. Decreasing risk of injury and improving performance? Now that's a win-win.

Where do I start?

The first step? Work on retraining that motor pattern. Below is a three-step running-specific progression to work on controlling your pelvis about that transverse plane. The movements are subtle. I’m not asking you to swing your hips around uncontrollably! Start with the first exercise and when it becomes automatic and reflexive, progress to the next. When you first start these exercises, they may require a lot of cognitive focus on the task at hand. But after adequate repetition and consistency, this should become intuitive. For further guidance and education on gait mechanics and injury prevention, schedule an appointment with us today!

Single Leg Pelvic Rotation with Knee Drive

Start off leaning into the wall, as you drive one knee forward, rotate the pelvis to drive that same side hip bone further forward with the knee. The key is to keep that knee moving straight forward (don't let it cross over the center of the body). This slight rotation of the pelvis creates relative internal rotation and extension of the stance leg, consequently turning on the glutes. Remember to keep the core engaged as well throughout.

Single Leg Pelvic Rotation with Triple Extension

The next progression is to add a heel raise as you drive the knee and hip forward, mimicking that terminal stance and push-off phase of gait.

Single Leg Step-Up with Resisted Pelvic Rotation

The more advanced progression requires single leg stability and balance and core control. With a resistance band around your hips tied behind you, step up onto a box. As you drive your knee forward, your same hip bone should also point and move forward against the resistance of the band. Keep your core engaged!

References:

1.     Davis IS, Futrell E. Gait Retraining: Altering the Fingerprint of Gait. Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am. 2016;27(1):339-355. doi:10.1016/j.pmr.2015.09.002

2.     Mun KR, Guo Z, Yu H. Restriction of pelvic lateral and rotational motions alters lower limb kinematics and muscle activation pattern during over-ground walking. Med Biol Eng Comput. 2016;54(11):1621-1629. doi:10.1007/s11517-016-1450-8

3.     Saunders JB, Inman VT, Eberhart HD. The major determinants in normal and pathological gait. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 1953;35-A(3):543-558.