Yesterday I was watching Heather Watson, the current US Open Junior Champion play at Wimbledon. I observed that she appears to have an unstable pelvis (which is common amongst teenage girls). The reason this is worthy of a blog post is because an unstable pelvis (which is normally caused by weak gluteus medius muscles) can lead to lower back pain, due to excessive sideways motion of the lumbar spine, knee injuries and ankle injuries, due to a lack of control of pronation of the legs.
I also observed that she has a distended abdomen (which I am seeing more and more in young girls and in female tennis players). This abdominal distension is often caused by food sensitivities (can also be intestinal fungal, bacterial or parasite infections) which causes inflammation in the intestines. The abdominal muscles surrounding the intestines then get inhibited (don’t contract) so as not to put pressure on the inflamed organ. The abdominal muscles closest to the intestines stabilise the lower back, pelvis and rib cage whilst the muscles on the surface work more to create movement.
Interestingly, I saw on the BBC website this morning that Heather has an abdominal injury.Could it be her ‘outer unit’ abdominal muscles have over-worked to compensate for the inhibited ‘inner unit’ muscles?
If you play sport and feel you might have these problems too, then please reply with a comment and if I receive enough responses I’ll post future vlogs showing what an unstable pelvis looks like and what exercises and nutritional modifications you can do to put it right, therefore avoiding injury and improving performance.