Trying to fix APT but my IKs got more uncontrollable

[Paul789]

ok, well you have a plan which is great. Let me know how you progress when you start working more with your abs! 😎

[Paul789]

yes i only stretch them now using the wall, it gives a much more intense stretch.

[venom888]

Can you have tightness + weakness at the same time? And is tenderness when foam rolling a sign of tightness? My pt guy had me foal roll my glutes one day, I forget why as we've never talked about stretching/rolling them, only strengthening, and they were so incredibly tender. He suggested I start doing it regularly, but I haven't, because that doesn't seem like a good idea.

[WillGetBetter]

Yes, you can be tight and weak. For preE, fix the tightness first. Once you make good progress, then add some strengthening exercises (kegels) to your routine.

[andrewvi7]

Sorry to interject but i had to seriously disagree with Paul on a few notes.

APT is not only caused by tight hip-flexors, and they probably have the smallest role in APT. You have to look at the whole chain, stretching the hip flexors will do very little if you do not do strengthening exercises in the glutes, hammies and abdominals which all work to straighten the posterior chain. APT basically means that due to out extended seated positions our bodios go through adaptive muscle shortening in the hips and lower back and weakens the opposing muscles, so you have to look at the whole picture to fix it.

While strengthening the posterior chain, you stretch the opposite muscles of the lower back, hip flexors and some quad stretching. I say some quad as as far as i know there is only a single muscle in the front quads that connect to the actual hip for hip flexiion and thats the Sartorius muscle, all others are connected from the knee to high up on the leg bone for knee flexion only.

Now while strengthening exercises will aggravate the PF yes, but the PF is already tight and after a good deep leg workout to strengthen the posterior chain and fix APT, I always stretch the pelvic floor after which by then is even TIGHTER - not over stretched. You want to work the PF out through functional movements such as deep squats which forces the pelvic floor to stretch to its fullest inside a deep squat and contract to help you push back up. With PE it is highly likely that your PF is also weak as it is tight, so stretch it hard so it gets a bit of a workout and then a prolonged stretch with hindi squats and RK's primarily so that the stretches position becomes its default position.

Simply stretching the hip-flexors will not fix APT due to the fact that for example the abs will not magically start pulling their weight on the upper pelvis which is something i realised late in my journey and is currently the weakest link despite PE not being a problem of much anymore thanks to overpowering glutes and hammies. There was a really good article by 'Katie Bowman' written on pelvic floor dysfunction due to weak glutes. And all she recommends is literally squats squats squats. They've however privatised the article and made it for members only but not sure if you have to pay to read it or just register for free.... https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/t...pelvicfloor-2/

Those are just my two cents in the discussion however, they worked for me in terms of fixing APT and PE while never quitting the gym and actually helped me increase my squatting weight. (160kg 1x PR squat at 80kg bodyweight). Tho because i've started training abs properly quite late in the PE journey, my gut still sticks out badly and doesn't have the natural strength/tension to hold my midsection in good form.

[Paul789]

Andrewv17 please read with care what i write rather than cherry picking bits of information you have quickly skimmed over and getting the detail wrong.

Katy Bowman (not Katie) is quite correct on her videos/interviews when she talks about lack of core/glute strength is an issue for many people.

But often people with severe PFD have muscles that spasm so bad you are crying on the floor in pain and passing blood when the inflammation of the muscles is at its worst. And so, things have to be done in a correct order so we can still function day to day without the pain/inflammation getting worse.

I wrote on page 3 that there are lots of elements to APT. Tight muscles in some areas, muscle weakness in other areas, some people may have more tightness, other people may have more weakness etc
So
Some people may have a slight APT and at the same time a more severe lateral mis-alignment. .

So like i say please read with care what I write and good luck with your own journey with this.

[andrewvi7]

My bad, Katy Bowman, not Katie.

I'm simply disagreeing that people with APT and pelvic dysfunctions shouldn't be strengthening their glutes despite working the pelvic floors out at the same time. I'm merely suggesting that they do the glute workouts through squats etc instead of something like kegels which is often suggested on top of RK training or OF stretching.

In regards to the pain, inflammation and lateral misalignment etc I can't comment as I have not done any research on that topic or have any personal experience to comment. What I have said only applies for those with straight APT and PE.

[Paul789]

sorry - i was just being silly with the Katy. I actually do agree with you, particularly in your last post in re. to the squats etc !
And i agree with you with the glutes, the stronger your glutes the better. I just have to question at what point these should be strengthened.
But yes, I do think you are correct with what you say.

[venom888]

Regarding the "tight and needs stretched" vs "tight and shouldn't be stretched", I was thinking about this last night and it took me a while to comprehend, so for the benefit of anyone reading, and to further investigate this idea, I want to dive into it.

Where I was confused is with Paul's analogy of a rubber band. If you have a too-short rubber band, it's going to be tight to reach from point A to point B. Stretching will loosen it. Easy enough. Then Paul says if you have a long, already-stretched rubber band, stretching it is going to make it tighter. Well, no, no matter why it's tight, stretching it will loosen it, not make it tighter. So that analogy threw me off. The rubber band isn't analagous to a muscle because it's missing a key part of what's going on.

Take your hamstrings. The reason that stretching them with APT is not a good idea is not because stretching them will make them tighter directly, it's because we're dealing with opposing muscles. If you stretch them, it will lengthen them, but that's going to give slack for your hip flexors to just pull them tight again, which will pull your hamstrings even longer, and they'll remain tight. You need to strengthen them so they can resist the pull against them.

You can see from this picture where forces are being applied.
https://static1.squarespace.com/stat.../?format=1000w
If you were to draw in your hamstrings, you'd see they're being pulled up by the rotation of your pelvis, because your hip flexors are pulling down on the other side.

So stretching a muscle will make it tighter only if there's an opposing stronger muscle to pull in the slack that you create by stretching and lengthening. (And it seems to me that it might not be tighter than it was before, but would be equally tight.)

If we're going to assume that with APT your pf is tight because of an opposing muscle, not due to shortness/strength, then we need to identify what opposing muscles are pulling on it. Then you either lengthen those opposing muscles, or you strengthen your pf.

I'm not sure which is the case, stretch or don't stretch, but I think this is the way to figure it out.

Since moving your hips out of APT relaxes your pf, we could say the pelvic tilt is what causes the pf tightness, so if you lengthen your pf, but still have APT, the tilt will just pull in the slack of your pf and keep it tight even tho it's lengthened. Like your hamstrings. In theory you could strengthen your pf as a fix, but that's not addressing the real problem and is using small muscles as a fix for a problem caused by large ones.

But to say that strengthening your abs or glutes will make your PF tighter would be to say that those are the opposing muscles at work in making your pf tight, when evidence seems to show the opposite is true. (Unless it makes your pf tight because when you engage your abs and glutes you're engaging/strengthening your pf, which is already too strong in relation to whatever its opposing muscles are. And that would indicate your pf needs stretched. But if it's a case of too-strong pf then moving out of APT wouldn't relax it.)

So from all of this I think Paul might be right about not stretching your pf until you fix your APT. Thoughts?

[andrewvi7]

Regarding the "tight and needs stretched" vs "tight and shouldn't be stretched", I was thinking about this last night and it took me a while to comprehend, so for the benefit of anyone reading, and to further investigate this idea, I want to dive into it.

Where I was confused is with Paul's analogy of a rubber band. If you have a too-short rubber band, it's going to be tight to reach from point A to point B. Stretching will loosen it. Easy enough. Then Paul says if you have a long, already-stretched rubber band, stretching it is going to make it tighter. Well, no, no matter why it's tight, stretching it will loosen it, not make it tighter. So that analogy threw me off. The rubber band isn't analagous to a muscle because it's missing a key part of what's going on.

Take your hamstrings. The reason that stretching them with APT is not a good idea is not because stretching them will make them tighter directly, it's because we're dealing with opposing muscles. If you stretch them, it will lengthen them, but that's going to give slack for your hip flexors to just pull them tight again, which will pull your hamstrings even longer, and they'll remain tight. You need to strengthen them so they can resist the pull against them.

You can see from this picture where forces are being applied.
https://static1.squarespace.com/stat.../?format=1000w
If you were to draw in your hamstrings, you'd see they're being pulled up by the rotation of your pelvis, because your hip flexors are pulling down on the other side.

So stretching a muscle will make it tighter only if there's an opposing stronger muscle to pull in the slack that you create by stretching and lengthening. (And it seems to me that it might not be tighter than it was before, but would be equally tight.)

If we're going to assume that with APT your pf is tight because of an opposing muscle, not due to shortness/strength, then we need to identify what opposing muscles are pulling on it. Then you either lengthen those opposing muscles, or you strengthen your pf.

I'm not sure which is the case, stretch or don't stretch, but I think this is the way to figure it out.

Since moving your hips out of APT relaxes your pf, we could say the pelvic tilt is what causes the pf tightness, so if you lengthen your pf, but still have APT, the tilt will just pull in the slack of your pf and keep it tight even tho it's lengthened. Like your hamstrings. In theory you could strengthen your pf as a fix, but that's not addressing the real problem and is using small muscles as a fix for a problem caused by large ones.

But to say that strengthening your abs or glutes will make your PF tighter would be to say that those are the opposing muscles at work in making your pf tight, when evidence seems to show the opposite is true. (Unless it makes your pf tight because when you engage your abs and glutes you're engaging/strengthening your pf, which is already too strong in relation to whatever its opposing muscles are. And that would indicate your pf needs stretched. But if it's a case of too-strong pf then moving out of APT wouldn't relax it.)

So from all of this I think Paul might be right about not stretching your pf until you fix your APT. Thoughts?

All of that is dead on point, bulls-eye.

When working out both abs and glutes, you will inadvertently always engage the PF as it has a massive role in providing stability and integrity to the pelvis itself and the spine. Therefore working the glutes and the abs will definitely "aggravate" the PF, that is true. However, you also need to look into the bigger picture that relaxing the PF long term may be impossible without fixing the APT issue, and fixing the APT issue in most cases cannot be achieved by simply stretching the hip-flexors as APT is a whole posterior chain issue and not just the hip-flexors alone.

That's primarily why in my situation i tackled and still am tackling the whole chain. Weak abs, glutes & hamstrings and tight hipflexors and lower back... only then do i stretch the PF. Gotta understand that PE is a compilation of issues across your whole body structure, not just one or two muscles, in most situations anyway. Why? Because APT stems from the same lifestyle... Sitting farrrrrr too much, which we weren't designed to do. No surprise that PE is so common.

Edit: also if you google the function of the pelvic floor region, you will find a lot of information that when muscles in the lower body are weak, other muscles will try to compensate for that weakness. Personally i found that this was the case for me as i used to be a hard gamer when i was younger, like 10-15 hours a day high adrenaline gaming... plus all that cortisol and anxiety from PvP battles got my shit fucked up... I was a crazy kid lol