Sacroiliac Joint Pain: Learn about SI Joint Anatomy, Roles & Recommendations
Got Sacroiliac Joint Pain?
Read everything about it here…
The sacroiliac joint is one region in humans that can get severely effected, thereby, leading to pain and/or injury. This, which is otherwise called as SI joint is the place where the sacrum and pelvis meet with one another. If you have had SI joint pain before, you would know how it feels. It would hurt your back, hips and even down your legs. To put it simply, it would make even your daily activities difficult. You can no longer get in and out of your car easily. Not just this, you may not be able to do even your workouts easily.
In the following post, let’s see everything about the Sacroiliac joint pain and also let’s try to understand why it hurts so much and how to get rid of it here. Just keep reading…
Anatomy of Sacroiliac Joint:
Looking into the anatomy of SI joint is important when you try to understand the SI joint pain. Historically, the SI joint was believed to be immobile because it’s inherently stable joint. But recently, it has been found that the joint is not only mobile but it’s critical for shock absorption during any weight-lifting sessions and also to alleviate some amount of strain on your lumbar spine. The motion that is exhibited by this joint will vary from one person to another, although the amount of motion is actually small.[1]
While we don’t want to dig deeper into the complex anatomy of the joint, we would like to say that the configuration of the anatomy along with its strong ligaments makes it more stable. Also, these traits are more pronounced in males than in females. Hence, women will have less stable joints than men. Besides the strong ligaments, there are several super strong muscles surrounding the SI joint. Although they are surrounding the SI joint, they don’t actually act on it to create active motions. On the other hand, the motions are created indirectly by gravitational force and the muscles that act on the trunk and lower limbs.
Role of the SI Joint:
Primarily, the Sacroiliac Joint is structured to relieve stress and tension. It is acting as a buffer between the hips and lumbar spine. It acts by transmitting forces from the spine into the pelvis and the lower limbs and vice versa. There are two major movements that an SI joint does. One is called nutation which refers to when the bottom of your spine rotates forward against the other bones of the pelvis and the other is called counter-nutation meaning the opposite of nutation. These movements along with other smaller movements are what make the shock absorption possible.
Types of Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction:
In general, the Sacroiliac joint dysfunctions would fall into two major categories:
- Hypermobility
- Hypomobility
To put it simply, if the SI joint moves too much, we will call it hypermobility, whereas if it shows too little movement, we will call it hypomobility.[2]
How to Get Rid of the Problems Associated with SI Joint?
A research study that was published in the journal of “Clinical Biomechanics” found that muscle balancing is the key and if you want to have an optimal stability of your SI joint, you must concentrate on the two parts, which are namely, gluteus maximus and biceps femoris. This research study has also found that any weakness in the glutes, hamstrings, and tight psoas muscles can cause aberrant sacroiliac joint movement and loading. Also, as with other parts of the body, the lats and thoracolumbar fascia can also have an indirect role to play in the stability of the SI joint.
By all these, we need to understand that for correcting a hypermobile SI joint, we must concentrate on the surrounding muscles, mostly, gluteals, hamstrings, and lats. On the other hand, correcting a hypomobile SI joint is a bit tricky. We will have to do everything to be working optimally around the SI joint to fix the issue.
Recommendations:
If you are suffering from SI joint pain, you are advised to use an SI Joint Belt, which comes as hip brace and groin, hamstring, and hip brace. These products are specifically built to help alleviate the symptoms of SI joint pain by creating the right kind of compression around the hips, pelvis, and lumbar regions. You can comfortably wear these braces under your clothes and you are advised to wear all along the day. Using these braces will help reduce the pains felt in your lower back, lumbar, and sciatica regions.[3]
In addition, you must work on optimizing your hip mobility and stability through exercises. The recommended exercises for SI joint pain are the bear walk, glute bridge, plank, and dead bugs.
[product title="Try An SI Joint Belt Today" limit="8" cols="4" autoplay="false" autoplaySpeed="6000" infinite="false" arrows="true" dots="false" 1024="3" 600="2" 480="2" pagination="" layout="layout2" handle_collection="si-joint-hip" style="" vendors="false" countdown="false" countdown_style="dark" equal="false" size="nt_cover" ratio="ratio_nt" position="8" ]
References:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacroiliac_joint_dysfunction
- https://www.verywellhealth.com/sacroiliac-joint-pain-and-dysfunction-296975
- https://www.webmd.com/back-pain/si-joint-dysfunction-treatment
0 comments