The Pelvic Powerhouse

Submitted by: Lance Gill MS ATC

I am the Co-Director of the Titleist Performance Institute Fitness Advisory Board. I share duties with Jason Glass on establishing protocols for player development in the fields of functional movement restoration, physical screening, strength and power screening and development and for player development globally.

I also serve as Lead Instructor for TPI Level 1 and Level 2 Fitness Seminars globally. I have personally taught over 10,000 experts in the fields of; Golf Fitness, Golf Instruction, Medicine, Junior and Biomechanical proficiencies. Serving as lead instructor has taken me all over the world learning from the best fitness, medical and golf instructors that are currently in the industry.

I have served the TPI brand loyally for more than 13 years and am actively functioning as the Performance Director at the Institute, overseeing many projects including the development of; PGA, LPGA, EPGA, Web.com, Symetra, Challenge Tour, KPGA, JPGA, KLPGA, JLPGA, and LatinAmerica Tour players, as well as multiple National Federation Teams.

The Pelvic Powerhouse – WOFH

One of the most misunderstood portions of the game of golf is the human pelvis! That is correct, I said the pelvis is one of the most misunderstood portions of the game of golf. The reason is quite simple; if you cannot move your pelvis correctly you cannot perform any of the actions required in golf (walking, swinging, putting, chipping, riding in cart) efficiently. What does efficiently mean? It means being able to perform the above mentioned activities with consistency, with power and without the risk of hurting yourself. When you add all of those up, you get a happy golfer. Next, lets take a deeper look at the movements of the pelvis that are misunderstood.

The pelvis has three main movements to consider and I would like everyone to test themselves on these at home. The first motion is called pelvic tilt and it deals with the forward and backward tipping of the pelvis. The second motion is called pelvic rotation and it deals with the ability to smoothly rotate your pelvis both to the right and to the left without your knees or upper body controlling the motion. The third and final motion is called pelvic side bend and it deals with the ability to raise and lower one side of your pelvis without excessive motion from the lumbar spine (low back).

Now let us see if you can perform these motions! Prior to do any exercise, you should be able to identify potential movement dysfunctions first. These “physical screens” will be able to help identify the best exercises to do at home and to determine any red flag moves to stay away from to avoid injury.

Pelvic Tilt: Begin by getting into your golf posture and crossing your arms on your chest. First begin by slowly arching your lower back while maintaining your golf posture, and then reverse the movement by slowly flattening your back while maintaining your golf posture.

Pelvic Rotation: Begin by getting into golf posture and slowly rotate your pelvis to the right and then to the left without using your upper body at all. Make sure to keep your knees slightly bent the entire time as well.

Pelvic Side Bend: In a standing posture on the edge of a stair or elevated block and holding onto a stable object, begin motion by lifting the unsupported hip upwards to the sky and then slowly back down. Make sure to not bend your knee, rotate your pelvis or alter your spine position during the test.

We have assessed your ability to move your pelvis. The next question is what movements were limited and which movements were successful? From here the real work begins! Creating a workout or exercise routine should be based on your own abilities or limitations to perform a movement pattern. Randomly prescribing movements can work against you or even cause physical harm to you.

As an example, I wanted to give you an example of a four-step process to improving one of these pelvic movements. Let’s start with the Pelvic Tilt movement. Here is a simple four step process that you can do at home to improve your ability to pelvic tilt. And for the record this motion is responsible for the following things in the golf swing; power, transition mechanics, lower back safety, consistency and endurance. Please follow along and never progress to the next step in the process until you have mastered the previous step.

Exercise one is performed in what we “experts” call the supine position. Begin by laying on your back and elevate your knees and have you feet on the floor. From this position use your hands for support and slowly begin to arch and flatten your back, while keeping your tailbone on the floor. This is the most elementary position for the pelvic tilt motion to occur and we are using both gravity, the floor and our hands for assistance to create the foundations for this movement.

Exercise two is performed in the “quadruped” position, or simply put … on your hands and knees. This is a slight upgrade from our first exercise as we now have to control our spine without the ground being there to help up. While in this posture we will simply arch and flatten our lower back and pelvis, without any involvement form the upper back, mid back or neck/head.

Exercise three is performed in the tall kneeling position. This is the first time we will take the spine into a vertical or upright position. This makes the exercise harder as we now have to control all of our spinal segments independently against one another. From this position we will simply arch and flatten our lower back and pelvis while keeping everything below the waist, and above the lower back as quiet and non-moving as possible.

Our fourth and final exercise is a golf-posture pelvic tilt. This is the hardest in the series as you now have to control your pelvis while forces from the ground are working themselves up into your pelvis, while forces of gravity are working down through your spine to your pelvis. The forces collide and create a great deal of confusion for the pelvis. This is why we will start by holding onto something around chest height to help give us some support for the drill. Same rules will apply for this exercise; smooth arching and flattening of the pelvis and lower back while below the hips and above the lower back are to remain quiet and unchanged.

I hope you have learned a little bit about the function of your pelvis from this article and I ask you to get in touch with me if you have any questions about your performance and how to improve your pelvis for your wonderful world of golf. I have specialized in this for over two decades and hope that this simplified information can help you on the path to better scores, more distance, more consistent striking and less pain!

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