Sacroiliac Joint Pain.

Ever had pain in the Sacroiliac Joint area? Read on for a bit on info on this joint. 

The sacroiliac joint or SIJ forms the interface for where the sacrum and pelvis meet. Pain from this joint can show up in lower back pain, hip or leg. Train too hard, or lose form as you do various activities and you run the risk of injuring the joint.

The joint experiences very little movement and so it is difficult to conceptualize as a joint. There are some really strong muscles and ligaments that surround it. Joints normally have a muscle attached to it that produce movement. Think about your lower leg swinging forward through the knee joint and via action from your quadriceps muscles. The SIJ has no muscles attached and so therefore has no direct movement. However, due to its slightly mobile situation, it does experience movement due to indirect influence from your glutes, hamstrings, abdominal obliques, spinae erectors, piriformis and psoas muscles.

So, what is the point of the joint if it doesn’t have a muscle acting on it? 
The small amounts of movement in the joint are needed to act as a shock buffer as stresses are transmitted between the hip and spine. If you have ever stepped badly on a run or hit a stone with your back wheel, you might have felt the sensation of your hips shooting upwards while your spine drops downwards. Your SIJ was working overtime for you at that moment.

Hypermobile and Hypomobile joints.

There are two things that can happen to the joint. It can move too much – hypermobile, or not move enough – Hypomobile. In either case one wants to check which muscles need strengthening, and which muscles are tight and need to be released so that they stop pulling on the joint.

Hope that helps,

Mike Roscoe.

Kinesiologist.