In the Advanced Sling / Gait Exercises section of the book I recommend the use of walking poles (aka “Nordic walking”) to help re-balance the hips and core, and to restore correct gait mechanics. I didn’t provide much detail on how to do this however; this post should help those who wish to try it.

My sacrum was rotating and bending in the same direction (as opposed to rotating one way and bending the other). If your case is like mine I think you’ll find it most helpful INITIALLY to use a walking pole on your symptomatic side ONLY. Focus on driving forwards with your “good”hip, while relaxing your symptomatic side and basically allowing it to do whatever it wants to do. This may seem counter-intuitive, but as I’ll explain below, this approach is the one most likely to be of benefit; if you try to drive forwards with your symptomatic side before you’re ready, it’s likely to aggravate your symptomatic hip and make things worse.

So why does this one-sided use of the pole help? When you have a sacrum that’s bending and twisting in the same direction, the muscles on the “good”side are pulling the pelvis down at the front. This results in your “good” leg landing in a disadvantageous position, putting the muscles under strain and preventing them from working correctly. Over time, they get weaker and more painful. To help put this right, the use of a walking pole in the ‘symptomatic side hand’ will help you to restore correct gait mechanics on the good side. This will take the strain off muscles on your symptomatic side, giving them a better chance of working correctly and beginning to building some strength.

A number of people that have a sacrum that rotates one way and bends the other report great success using two poles from a fairly early stage in their rehabilitation.  If this is you, then the best advise I can give is to watch the video below then try it to see if it helps.

Whatever your dysfunction, the use of walking poles will help to restore balanced movement to the hips and torso – so long as you’re able to use them reasonably well!