Dude Your Hips are Rotated Part 2 - The Fix

We’re going to fix your rotated hips!
My name is Von Gillette, I’m a certified personal trainer and nutritionist.
By far, the most common cause for rotated hips are posture. I mean, think about it, you’re either sitting or standing for a lot of, if not most of your day.
Now, I want you to think about this. What would happen if you sat like this for a lot of your day?
I mean, even if you sat like this for 30 minutes, or 45 minutes, or an hour or more out of your day, this is like stretching for your body, and this position can absolutely produce some rotated hips.
You know, the funny thing is, most people are not even aware that they’re doing this, it just feels natural to them. And guess what happens next, the more you do it, the more it feels natural to you.
So, remember how we can actually see if we have rotated hips? Check out the first video here: • Dude, Your Hips are Ro...
Now I already know what a lot of you are thinking, but there must be some muscle which is causing this, right? Alright, so you need to see what people are actually doing and correct that, rather than going to muscles. Because if you don’t, two things are going to happen. First, two or three minutes of stretching usually doesn’t make up for an hour or 5 hours of being in this rotated pelvic position, so in this scenario the person is always fighting their problematic position.
Second, even if you do lengthen the muscles which are short which is possible, the person will still prefer to go back to their old posture because it feels natural to them! So even if the person has a normal length muscle now, the person is sitting all day with a rotated pelvis which can still affect their back, hips, and knees. The muscles might be fine, but their joints can still hurt! That’s not good!
Alright, so I’m sure there are a hundred different variations of sitting we could go through in which we could create a rotated pelvis. Not only that, there are a lot of different ways to stand and lie down which could create a rotated pelvis. So instead of trying to find every single one of these variations, I’m going to show you exactly how you should sit, stand, and lie down to insure you are not in a rotated position.
You need to make sure the knees line up. You can’t have one knee more forward than the other because you can see that if my left knee is more forward than my right knee, this creates a left pelvic rotation, right? If my right knee is more forward than my left knee, this creates a right pelvic rotation.
If sitting is the cause of your rotated pelvis, this will correct it.
However, your problem might not be sitting, it could be standing or it could be lying down, so let’s take a look at those positions.
It’s possible that when you’re standing, you may be standing with one hip more forward than the other. People cross over one leg or have one foot in front of the other which then rotates the hips.
Unlike sitting, when standing, it’s key that you measure your hips with pencils (as shown in the “Dude, Your Hips are Rotated - Part 1” video: • Dude, Your Hips are Ro... ). Then, make sure your feet are also lined up. It’s possible when one foot is in front of the other, this is actually a compensation for rotated hips. When a person corrects their feet, it often reveals rotated hips.
When a person stands appropriately without a rotation (after having one), it may feel like they are standing with their hips rotated because it doesn’t feel natural to them. However, their hips are actually neutral or not rotated!
Oftentimes, rotated hips are due to a sleeping position. This can happen when side lying. If the top leg falls down all the way to the bed, this will rotated the pelvis in the direction the leg is falling toward. Also, the wider the hips, the greater the rotation (since there is more space to rotate through). It’s even possible that even when the top leg is resting on top of the bottom leg, a person with wide-enough hips will still have a hip rotation.
This is why it’s critical to have a pillow between the legs and sometimes two pillows if either the hips are very wide or if the top leg rests on the bed versus the bottom leg. This will often alleviate acute pain if the pain is due to rotated hips. Then, it becomes important to make sure your shoulders are square too. This means you should not have one shoulder more forward than the other.
For many people, just getting into the proper position will alleviate pain. Remember, all these solutions address a pure pelvic rotation. They do not address a pure abdominal rotation. But, do keep these solutions in mind as they will also play a role when we have a both a pelvic and abdominal rotation happening at the same time.
If you have any questions or comments about rotated hips or about these solutions, don’t hesitate to ask in the comment section below. I’m happy to answer them! Thank you for watching.
-Von Gillette