Lionheart Fitness

I spent years stretching my hip flexors and strengthening my hamstrings in an attempt to correct my anterior pelvic tilt. When that didn’t work and I heard some other people say it was just genetic and you couldn’t really correct yoir posture I gave up. That was until a few weeks ago when I finally understood that my entire thought process regarding anterior tilt was wrong. It wasn’t my muscles pulling my pelvis into that position, my pelvis was in that position because my center of gravity was forward out over my toes. Within a few days of doing some new found corrective exercises to help bring my center of gravity back I felt a huge difference. So much space opened up not just in my hips but throughout my whole body. I want to be clear, anterior pelvic tilt is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re someone who’s trying to correct their anterior pelvic tilt I would highly recommend you reconceptualize the way you look at it. It is primarily the result of a more forward center of gravity, if you can bring the center of gravity back it corrects itself, no stretching or strengthening needed.

Number 1 thing to understand about anterior pelvic tilt: It is not caused by your muscles, it’s caused by your center of gravity. Instead of worrying about stretching tight muscles and strengthening elongated ones, pick exercises that help bring your center of gravity from out over your toes to back over your heels.

I’ve always struggled to feel traditional pressing and flye movements in my pecs, particularly the inner sternal fibers. For a long time I thought that was just due to my structure but after diving more into ribcage compression and expansion I realized that the technique I was using to press and flye was the issue. I did the traditional arch and retract method of setting up my presses and flyes and went into a super deep retracted range of motion. As a result I felt a lot of front delts and triceps but very little pecs.

Recently I’ve switched to a shorter range of motion, thinking about depressing the shoulders instead of forcing them to stay retracted, and keeping my ribcage stacked over my hips instead of really arching. All of these changes have made a big difference, but what made the biggest difference imo was incorporating these alternating presses and flyes into my routine. Instead of bilaterally compressing my ribcage, one side stays expanded and I feel it so much more in my inner sternal pec fibers than I ever have before.

I’m not a PRI or ECM specialist by any means but through my experience there is something to this model and dismissing it out of hand is a mistake imo.

I think I’ve finally gotten over my hatred for smith RDLs.

Up there with Kristi Noem for my least favorite woman.