Imagine lifting your baby at the park and suddenly feeling a sharp pain shoot through your back. For Katherine, a mom navigating postpartum life with her first child, that moment wasn’t just painful—it was terrifying. That experience revealed an underlying issue she hadn’t known about- Her pelvic floor physical therapist diagnosed her with a high hinge point—a condition she hadn’t even heard of before.
When Katherine was just seven weeks postpartum with baby #2, she reached out to me to book a package of private lessons. She was already enrolled in Yoga for Moms with New Babies, but she wanted to ensure her experience with her first baby didn’t happen again.
I’ve talked a lot about how pregnancy changes your posture, but one topic I haven’t touched on is a high hinge point. Let’s dive in:
What is it?
A high hinge point is when the curve of your lower back shifts upward into your thoracolumbar junction- that’s a fancy word for the place where your low back and midback meet. If you know anatomy, it’s where L1 and T12 meet.
When this happens, your lower back will lose some of its curvature, and take on a flat appearance. It’s often accompanied by a rib flare as well.
Why does it happen?
Pregnancy changes your posture. As your baby grows, your body has to adapt to that ever-growing load. Meanwhile, some of your bigger, stabilizing muscles are growing weaker, like your glutes and abs, and your ligaments are getting lax. So, your body will often change the curves of your spine to help you adapt to that growing weight of your baby. Some of you will experience an increased curve in your lower back, and other folks will experience an increased curve in their upper back.
A few of you will experience a high hinge point- and hold on to it. For months or even years after giving birth.
Why does it matter?
A high hinge point is often accompanied by weak abdominal muscles. But your body is smart. If your abdominal muscles aren’t working, something else will figure out how to do the work of your abdominals. In this case, your diaphragm, psoas and quadratus laborum (QL) will often start doing the work of your abdominals. Your diaphragm, psoas and QL all play a role in spinal stability during movement, but they have other jobs in your body and aren’t designed to do the work of your abdominals.
When a smaller or secondary muscle (secondary means it helps with a specific movement, but another muscle has that as a primary job), it can lead to tight, overworked muscles. Tight, overworked muscles can lead to pain (back pain is a very common complaint among folks with a high hinge point), and sometimes, injury.
Many injuries occur because of repetition, often repetition of a movement with inefficient alignment or improper posture. If you’re a yogi, you might be familiar with shoulder injuries from Chaturanga. It’s not that Chaturanga is bad, and doing Chaturange once or twice with poor alignment isn’t bad, either. It’s doing it over and over and over again without the proper form that can eventually lead to injury. For Katherine, it likely wasn’t that one time at the playground that caused her back to go out. It was lifting her baby up over and over again with her back muscles instead of her abs countless times before that day at the park. That day at the park was simply the day her body couldn’t take it anymore.
Can you fix it?
Absolutely! Your muscles are what hold your bones in certain alignments, and muscles have an incredible ability to change.
In this instance, we need to calm down what is overworked, and light up the muscles that have grown weak. That means you need to calm down your diaphragm, psoas and QL, as well as strengthen your abs, lower traps, and for some folks, lats. With Katherine, we worked on breathing into her back ribs, which can help calm down the diaphragm and psoas, and stretch the muscles of your back. We also included psoas release into all her practices (her psoas was VERY tight). Sometimes, I incorporated release work with a ball to encourage her back muscles to release. After her overworked muscles had calmed down, we worked on strengthening her abs- think Dead Bug progressions, baby crunches and Side Planks.
Today, Katherine continues to thrive in her yoga practice. Her back hasn’t given out again, and she’s become stronger and more confident in her movement—proof that with the right guidance, recovery is possible.
If you’re a mom looking to regain strength, prevent pain, and feel more at home in your body, my Yoga for Moms with New Babies series is here to support you. With personalized guidance and a supportive community, you’ll have the tools you need to thrive postpartum. Spots are limited. Click here to get your name on the waitlist- you’ll be the first to know when doors open.
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