To tuck or not to tuck
What to do with the position of your tailbone during activities
What does this mean? Tuck the tailbone. It means that you are tilting your pelvis in a posterior (toward the back) pattern or flattening the lower back. Which, by the way, isn’t a bad thing in the same way that an anterior tilt isn’t bad. We need to see movement as a positive thing. When we place so many rules and restrictions on our movement, we lose presence in the moment. We give away agency over our bodies and what feels good to our own being. We lose the ability to trust our own natural intuition about what feels good and true for our own bodies.
Let’s practice tucking and untucking the tailbone. I invite you to come to a seated position. You can be on any surface that’s comfortable and if it’s accessible, sit without back support. Please know that you can practice this laying down, reclined or with back support. You could also practice this on your hands and knees. So, find your position and these cues will work wherever you are.
Think of the pelvis as a cup. It’s wider at the top than it is at the bottom. Visualize it being full of liquid. The sitting bones, or ischial tuberosities, are typically neutral if you feel those when you’re sitting upright with the pelvis level. Tilt forward, arching the back, feeling weight shift toward the pubic bone. Visualize tipping some liquid over the front edge of the cup. This is an untucked position. Now, slowly tilt backward, rounding the spine, feeling weight shift onto the tailbone. Visualize tipping some liquid over the back edge of the cup. This is a tucked position.
During yoga, weightlifting, and even activities of daily living, you may have heard that you need to tuck the tailbone for some activities whereas, sometimes it’s recommended for you to untuck, or arch the lower back, during other activities. It gets kind of confusing. For example, during a squat in weightlifting or during ADLs, we say, “keep the natural curve in the lower back” which means that when we squat, we keep the buttocks back, and we maintain a lordotic curve, or arch, in the lower back. The tailbone would be in an untucked position with this. But, when we do chair pose in yoga, we typically hear, “tuck the tailbone” or “lengthen the tailbone” which means we flatten the lower back moving into a more kyphotic, or rounded, position. If you are not familiar with chair pose, it is very similar to a squat. So, why in one position do we say to tuck and in a very similar position, we say to untuck?
So, is there a “right” way? My opinion is to invite you to practice the movement of tucking and untucking the tailbone and feel what is best for your body. Notice what happens in your hips, your lower back, your upper back, your neck and head as you practice tucking and untucking the tailbone. There is not a good or bad, right or wrong way to move as we are all unique. Honor what feels good to you. Move with ease. I think that when we force a movement that does not meet us where we are, we set ourselves up for increased pain or risk of injury. And, research does not support one position over another as being more safe for our spine.
Take good care,
Sharon