WTF Is Neutral Pelvis?!
Here’s the scenario: You’re in a pilates or Barre class, maybe a HIIT session. And you hear your instructor cue you to get into neutral pelvis. Maybe you’ve heard this phrase before. Maybe someone has even explained it to you once or twice.
Photo by Netcham Hairston
So you press your pelvis a little forward or tuck it back and down until it ‘feels’ like what neutral is supposed to be. And you keep going. Then, your instructor cues again: “keep your neutral pelvis!” And the battle for neutral continues.
So what is neutral pelvis anyway?
Neutral pelvis is commonly cued when you’re lying down on your back. Your two hip points above and pubic bones below form a triangle on the front of your pelvis. You want that triangle to be parallel with the ground, so that your pubis is reaching through the legs, your lower back is slightly lifted off the ground, and your tailbone is heavy on the floor.
Photo by Netcham Hairston
I find this description problematic and ditched it years ago. While these instructions are easy to follow, they don’t offer the whole-body alignment required to maintain this position. And being that this is an artificially held position, it’s easily lost and thus not very helpful when you start to move.
Before I define neutral pelvis, let me tell you what I believe neutral pelvis isn’t. It isn’t a position that the pelvis needs to be glued into in order to perform a given move. It isn’t the same for every body; it isn’t always required for accurate and functional movement.
Keeping a neutral pelvis can help you determine what is and isn’t moving — and that helps build your capacity.
Pelvic Positions
The pelvis is a wondrous bowl-like structure that sits at the bottom of the spine. It is the junction between the low spine and the leg, making it an important communicator between upper and lower body. When things get wonky in the pelvis, that wonkiness can travel up and down the chain. Similarly, if anything is wonky in the spine or leg, it can transfer to the pelvis.
Having maximum range of motion at the hip joints is important for the pelvis to find its natural alignment between spine and legs. Try my 360 Hips video to find your full range. In fact, how the pelvis sits atop the leg bones will affect spine alignment all the way to the head, neck and shoulders.
So getting pelvic alignment right does matter, but just like with all dynamic alignment, neutral pelvis isn’t a position - it’s a relationship.
Neutral pelvis isn’t a position - it’s a relationship.
That relationship has to do with the balance between the front and the back body — how the muscles of the front balance against the muscles along the back of the pelvic bowl — the balance between inner and outer hips, and the balance between the ribs and the pelvis. These relationships can be slightly different day by day, and from move to move.
Illustration by Tess Marhofer
Every Pelvis is A Snowflake
When we find neutral pelvis, we are looking for a balance between front, back, right, left, top and bottom — where your bowl is well balanced over the thighs and under the spine. That is going to look a little different for every body, depending on various structural and functional patterns.
A mover with a tight lower back is going to have a very different neutral than someone with a hyper-extended lower back. Someone who has just given birth is going to have a different neutral pelvis than someone who just ran a marathon.
Your pelvis’s relationship to your legs and spine will require different things. It’s important to pay attention to what feels like balance between front and back, instead of forcing your alignment artificially.
Why neutral?
The pelvis is highly mobile. There is 360 degree rotation around the ball of the femur, along with the mobility of the lower spine, creating maximum range of motion along all planes. With all this range of motion, it's very easy to get unclear about where the pelvis is in a given movement.
Whenever we use our bodies, we are shifting our pelvis in and out of neutral. When we get clear on what neutral is, we create a baseline relationship to our center.
In other words, by finding a neutral pelvis, you are organizing your movement around a working idea of your center. It’s not theoretical, but viscerally clear to you where your center is through your sense of neutral.
In order to know neutral you have to practice what is NOT neutral -- exploring the relationships between the pelvis, spine and legs through tilting the pelvis front, back, side, twisting and hip hiking. All of these relationships are present when we walk, run, cartwheel, bike, crawl, etc.
When we get clear on what neutral is, we create a baseline relationship to our center.
Finding neutral pelvis also helps us find a neutral spine, helping to avoid any subconscious muscular holding that takes us out of our organic center alignment.
When Not To Neutral
I think the notion of neutral pelvis can be really helpful when you’re first learning to differentiate your body parts, build awareness and coordination, and most specifically when you’re trying to bring deeper and broader movement into your hip joints. Keeping a neutral pelvis can help you determine what is and isn’t moving — and that helps build your capacity.
But what this isolationist approach lacks is the fluidity of full, embodied movement. Once you get to the place where you can sense the relationship of your pelvis to your head, your spine, and your legs, when you know the best placement for your pelvis that frees up your spine and your hip joints, then your movement can define how your pelvis aligns instead of the other way around.
This is not something that can be talked through. It has to be embodied. Let me guide you to your authentic pelvic alignment.
Discover Your Neutral Pelvis
As I mentioned above, neutral pelvis is primarily determined by the balance between the front, back, right, left, top and bottom in relation to the spine. We want our bowl to not tip too far in any direction.
Got a sense of what and why? Now, try this movement sequence for dynamic pelvic alignment.
