What can you do if you have SI Joint pain?
Discomfort in the back of the pelvis could be your sacroiliac joint (SI Joint) and tends to be more to one side than the other. It can feel like deep, glute pain more towards one side. And tends to increase with single leg movements, walking, or even shifting around in bed!
What can you do if you have SI Joint pain? First, seeing a physical therapist would be a great idea if the option is available to you so that you can have an individualized assessment to understand what is actually causing the pain.
During pregnancy, the common answer is the cause is the instability that comes with our joints having more laxity or being looser. We want our pelvic joints to be looser so that our baby can descend through a more mobile pelvis, but this increased mobility may contribute towards instability issues that may cause pain or discomfort.
With this laxity, there may be a combination of weakness (needing to strength muscles) and restriction (needing to release muscles).
So other than seeing a physical therapist, we recommend a few things....
Focus on transverse abdominis and internal oblique activation during your exhalations. The TA and IO play a significant role in resisting shear loads across the SI joint and maintaining stability of the joint. These muscles can be activated by drawing in your belly up and up. This doesn’t mean suck in your belly, but actively drawing your belly up and in through a muscular activation. Typically, you should see the bottom of the belly come in first, then the rest follows from bottom to top. Read this blog for some cues on how to activate the core. One of my favorites is to make a shhh sound.
Focus on strengthening the posterior oblique sling. The posterior oblique sling stabilizes the SI joint and runs from lat to opposite glute across the thoracolumbar fascia. When the lat and opposite glute are simultaneously contracted, a stabilizing force is transmitted across the SI joint!
- Focus on pelvic positioning. We tend to have stance tendencies that can shift the pelvis rotationally. This shift should happen normally when we walk to help the pelvic joints stabilize as we walk and move. But sometimes we may find ourselves “suck” in a stance pattern that can make it difficult to stabilize when we step with a certain leg. Watch the video for some more tips.
Our pelvic stability accessory program lays out several days worth of posterior oblique sling specific exercises, and can be completed at the end of your existing workout program to help increase pelvic stability. This program can also be done as a standalone program if you are looking for a low volume workout program.