Pilates At Home Sacroiliac Joint Pain Exercises give many benefits while helping you treat and manage pain. These exercises can help you to reduce back pain, increase strength, improve mobility, prevent injury, and heal pelvic muscles. All you need to start feeling good in your own body again with these 5 exercises are 4 simple items: (1) your own body weight, (2) an exercise mat, (3) a resistance loop band, and lastly (4) a Pilates ball (or pillow)!
I will be sharing with you 5 Pilates Exercises for Treating Sacroiliac Joint Pain, as well as some SI exercises to avoid! Download my Free PDF Guide to have these helpful exercises with you at home or on-the-go whenever you need them. Whether your sacroiliac joint pain is related to instability, poor posture, pregnancy, inflammation, or another health condition, incorporating Pilates at home into your daily routine can help you live a more functional, active, and fulfilling lifestyle.
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Before we get into the exercises, let’s first learn a little bit about the sacroiliac joint.
The Sacroiliac Joint, also known as the SI Joint, sits on both sides of your spine. If you were wearing pants with pockets, you can visualize where the joint sits by imagining where the top of your back pants pockets would be. Your sacroiliac, or SI joint, connects your spine, at the sacrum, to your hip joints, pelvis, and pelvic floor. There are various muscles that attach to this skeletal connection, and a few of them are the same muscles that make up your core and can be strengthened with Pilates exercises. Some of these attaching muscles include the abdominal muscles, gluteal muscles, spinal erectors, hip muscles, and pelvic floor.
The sacroiliac joint’s primary job is to be a load transfer and a shock absorber between the spine and lower extremities. It supports the weight of the upper body when you stand or walk, and then takes that weight load and shifts it into your legs. This joint does not have a large range of motion, but it does glide and move as you flex your back, walk or run. There are many nerves near the SI joint and it is often the point of back pain in back injuries.
Joint pain can be more than a nuisance. It can often be debilitating, making it difficult to go about necessary daily activities such as sitting, standing, bending, and lifting. Mobility around the joint area is important, but tricky, as too much or too little can cause discomfort or pain. This is a common area of concern during pregnancy and postpartum because the joint bones and ligaments become too mobile and lax in the body’s natural preparation for childbirth.
During pregnancy, the release of the relaxin hormone causes ligaments to loosen and can lead to the sacroiliac joint being hyper mobile. Pregnancy also causes alignment shifts due to the body counteracting uneven, forward weight distribution gained in the cute baby bump. This can look like tipping of the pelvis forward into an anterior pelvic tilt, causing the bones intersecting at the SI joint to rub against one another resulting in pain. Also, increased body weight puts more downward pressure on the pelvis, which accentuates the hormonal changes, loosened ligaments, and skeletal alignment shifts even more. Several at home Pilates SI joint exercises can help stabilize this area.
As you can see in the above photo and the four photos to follow, these 5 Pilates Exercises for Treating Sacroiliac Joint Pain are pregnancy safe for all trimesters. I was pregnant with my son Nash in these photos while in my 3rd trimester. The exercises helped me to manage my pain so well, and are very prenatal friendly exercises for at home.
* As always, please consult with your doctor before starting any new exercise regimen, especially during pregnancy. And, please listen to your body. If you experience any pain or coning of the abdomen stop the exercise.
Along with the recommended 5 Pilates exercises below, there is another thing you can do to decrease SI joint pain during pregnancy — Invest in a maternity support belt.
According to PainTEQ, “a maternity support belt is designed to relieve pressure from your SI joint, as well as to help you improve your posture. You can wear one whenever you’re walking or doing other light activities.” I personally used this pregnancy SI support belt during my pregnancies and postpartum and thought this was the best SI belt for pregnancy.
This kind of pain can feel dull or achy. It can feel stiff, but also unstable. According to Spine Health, “at times pain can feel sciatic-like in the buttocks and/or backs of the thighs that feels hot, sharp, and stabbing and may include numbness and tingling.”
SI Joint Pain is most commonly felt in the low back and buttocks, but can also be felt in the legs on occasion.
According to National Library of Medicine, sacroiliac joint pain can stem from either traumatic causes (for example, fractures or collisions) or atraumatic causes (like osteoarthritis or pregnancy). Repetitive and sheer force can bring on SI Joint pain, but sometimes there is no clear cause for sacroiliac pain.
One way to treat sacroiliac pain is to strengthen and stretch the connecting muscles that surround the SI joint. Stretching the muscles in the lower back, and strengthening the muscles that help to support the pelvic floor (like the deep and lower abdominal muscles) plays a huge role in sacroiliac joint pain management and treatment. Pilates mat exercises can help you to achieve these objectives. They increase strength and flexibility of the abdominal muscles, obliques, hips and glutes, and improve hip stabilization keeping the pelvis neutral and strong.
Below are 5 Pilates Exercises for Treating Sacroiliac Joint Pain. These exercises are low-impact and ones you can do at home or on-the-go with just 4 simple items: (1) your own body weight, (2) an exercise mat, (3) a resistance loop band, and lastly (4) a Pilates ball (or pillow)!
* As always, it is important to consult with your doctor before starting a new exercise regimen, especially if you’re experiencing pain.
All you will need for this workout is yourself, an exercise mat, a resistance band, and a Pilates ball! Let’s get started!
Targets: Glutes and lower back, supporting the sacroiliac joint.
* For a live demonstration of the Glute Bridge Exercise, watch the workout video at the top!
Targets: Core and pelvic stabilizers.
* For a live demonstration of the Knee Fold to Chest Exercise, watch the workout video at the top!
Targets: Outsides of your hips as well as your butt, specifically the gluteus medius.
* For a live demonstration of the Figure 4 Cross Stretch Exercise, watch the workout video at the top!
Targets: Outer glutes and hips.
* For a live demonstration of the Seated Clamshell Exercise, watch the workout video at the top!
Targets: Inner thighs, core, and pelvic floor.
* For a live demonstration of the Seated Adduction Squeeze Exercise, watch the workout video at the top!
To help you learn these exercises at home or on-the-go, download my FREE 5 Pilates Exercises for Treating Sacroiliac Joint Pain Guide. It includes each exercise above, its how-to-steps, and demonstration photo so you can always have it with you for reference whenever needed.
There are certain sacroiliac joint pain exercises that put extra pressure on the SI joints. Any exercises or activities that require your body to shift its weight from one leg to another can cause more irritation, so we recommend avoiding them so as to not increase the strain on the sacroiliac joint. For example, some exercises to avoid would be:
Pilates at home is truly a wonderful way to learn SI joint pain exercises as it will help correct muscle imbalances inflicted on our bodies over the years. Movements that come naturally and without much thought are often the worst offenders. Examples of these movements are: twisting incorrectly, sitting/standing with poor posture, and trauma from previous injuries. All of these can cause temporary or permanent discomfort to our SI joint if we don’t address them.
Enjoy 1 Month FREE of PILATESBODY On-Demand using the code FREETRIAL at checkout. Get unlimited access to Pilates workouts designed for treatment and pain management to help you strengthen your core and the other muscles that connect to your SI joint . Hit play on any device for Pilates at home with these 3 classes that are designed for sacroiliac joint pain exercises:
Share your favorite SI joint exercises below in the comment section! If you haven’t tried any yet, I’d love to chat with you on how to start!
Your Friend & Pilates Expert,
Kayla Brugger
Founder of PILATESBODY by Kayla
Founder of PILATESBODY On-Demand
Hi, I'm Kayla Brugger. Certified Pilates Instructor & Minnesota Mama of 2.
