Pelvic control is an important thing to have at the hips level.  Anterior pelvic tilt is a common problem in the athletic population.  With too much anterior tilt, also comes increased lordosis.

Neutral pelvis on the left. Anteriorly tilted pelvis on the right.

Both of these postural problems can lead to a number of injuries including back pain, hamstring pulls, quad pull, etc.  The traditional approach to reestablishing neutral alignment is to stretch the hip flexors and strengthen the glutes and hamstrings to pull the pelvis posteriorly.

Although this is a good approach, there are other players that can contribute to pelvic control that are often forgotten.  One really important player is the external obliques.  The external obliques’ primary functions are to stabilize the trunk (in combination with the internal obliques, rectus abdominis and spinal erectors) by creating a brace around the spine and to create/prevent rotation at the trunk.  A function of the external obliques that is often forgotten is posterior tilt/control of the pelvis because of its attachment on the illiac crest.  When you’re stuck in anterior tilt the external obliques usually have poor control on the pelvis.

With their attachment directly on the pelvis, the external obliques play a big role in preventing anterior tilt.

Because of their role in posterior pelvic tilt, we could call the external obliques the lower abs.  Not that the bodybuilding guys were right in training their upper abs and lower abs separately, but there might be some merit in making the distinction between the rectus abdominis (who felxes the spine and depresses the ribs) and the external obliques (who posteriorly tilt the pelvis as we’ve just mentioned) in some cases.

Stay tuned for part 2!  I’ll go over exercises you can do to help improve pelvic control using the external obliques.

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