Find me on social media
SethOberst.com
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Blog
    • Free Movement Meditations
  • About
    • About Me
    • In the Media
  • Essential Book List
  • Contact
    • Contact Me
    • Work With Me
    • My Process
  • Courses
    • Stress, Movement, and Pain Course
    • Webinars
    • Movement Meditations Audio Course
    • Host a Course
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Blog
    • Free Movement Meditations
  • About
    • About Me
    • In the Media
  • Essential Book List
  • Contact
    • Contact Me
    • Work With Me
    • My Process
  • Courses
    • Stress, Movement, and Pain Course
    • Webinars
    • Movement Meditations Audio Course
    • Host a Course

Stop Leaning on One Leg While Standing: A Public Service Announcement

11/18/2013

1 Comment

 
This week's post is a public service announcement to get everyone to cease and desist leaning on one leg (i.e. hanging on one hip) when standing. Many of us do it without even thinking, shifting our body weight over onto one leg and just hanging out there. But in the effort to use less effort, we are reinforcing awful movement patterns and putting the entire kinetic chain in a damaging position. If you or your athletes have medial knee pain, hip or back dysfunction a good place to start may be how they're standing. We also definitely see this in our athletic new mother's too, who hold the baby on their hip while leaning on one leg (hello pelvic floor dysfunction).
Here's the deal:

Our musculoskeletal system is set-up to distribute the weight of our body plus gravity in an optimal way. However, when leaning onto one leg that weight is redistributed such that the pelvis drops toward that leg (see image below). The result is ugly:
  • The glutes shut off, and active control of the hip is lost. By rendering these muscles (which control the motion of the pelvis on the femur in the closed chain) useless, we are relying on the hip ligaments/capsule and bone-bone contact for support. This glute-inhibited position also may inhibit control of the pelvic floor causing a major women's health issue, particularly in new mothers.
  • The redistribution of weight from the pelvic drop causes increased loading to the medial (inside) compartment of the knee - referred to as the external knee adduction moment - a huge cause of knee joint osteoarthritis. No wonder your knees hurt after standing for awhile. It also increases the lateral pull on the patella, potentially altering patellofemoral loading (anterior knee pain).
  • The lumbar spine has to compensate in order to keep the trunk upright, which has consequences. The spine is flexed laterally and spinal control is altered. We are also likely closing down the intervertebral spaces where nerve roots exit as well as firing up the lateral stabilizers of the spine (quadratus lumborum comes to mind).
Picture
Courtesy: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~humananatomy/figures/chapter_18/18-3.HTM
But the real problem is that we are reinforcing this faulty pattern daily and even hourly often out of habit. This contralateral pelvic drop is a pathognomic we look for often as physios, yet our athletes are reinforcing it even between reps while training! How much will you benefit from motor control or strength training - often directly targeted at this hip/pelvic control issue - if you lean on one hip while drinking water between sets? Yet this happens all the time. In order for our training and performance gains to stick there has to be carryover to everyday movements. You move how you move. Chances are if you are standing with this pattern you will walk and run with this same pattern.
Picture
Here's the fix (it's an easy one): stop leaning on one leg! You should have active glutes while standing (you need to be squeezing them and your abs while upright). No more passive leaning, hanging on your hip joint. If necessary, stand with a wider base of support, march in place, or put one foot on stool for a bit to unload your spine during prolonged standing. Penalize yourself or your athletes with 10 burpees for every minute of leaning on one leg.

Here ends this Public Service Announcement.

- Seth
1 Comment
Nasty link
5/5/2018 02:07:32 am

Can I be experiencing pain in the Pelvic area due to applying pressure on one leg when leaning?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Breathing
    Coaching
    Learning
    Lower Extremity
    Movement Baselines
    Movement Meditations
    Neck And Jaw
    Pain
    Perceptions
    Performance
    Recommended Readings
    Recovery
    Regulation And Stress
    Spine
    Upper Extremity

    Archives

    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    RSS Feed

Home
About
Contact

© 2017 Dr. Seth Oberst
This is about changing the way we perceive the world and ourselves. By knowing ourselves as accurately as possible we move more efficiently, connect with people more deeply, and live more balanced - a regulated life. 

"To know reality you cannot stand outside it and define it; you must enter into it, be it, and feel it." Alan Watts