What’s your SI joint?

You have two. They are the joints that connect your sacrum to your hip bones (one on the right and one on the left).

Your sacrum is actually like the keystone of your skeletal system.

It’s the triangular bone that’s directly below the lumbar vertebrae in your lower back and directly above your tailbone at the very base of your spine.

So it connects the top half of your body, your torso, to the lower half of your body, your hips and legs.

And since it connects to both the left and right hip bones that means it is the one bone that connects to all 4 quadrants of your body: upper, lower, right and left.

Hence: keystone.

When we sit, which many of us do all day at our jobs, the sacrum bears the weight of our upper body.

The sacrum and the joints themselves have the ability to move very slightly, more in women than men because of the sacrum's purpose in assisting with pelvic changes during childbirth.

As humans we usually have a dominate side of the body and also use the sides of our body differently which means our hips are not perfectly symmetrical or balanced in their strength and flexibility.

This can contribute to what is called SI Joint Dysfunction.

Defined by verywellhealth.com, this is when "you experience pain due to abnormal movement (too much or too little) or misalignment of the SI joint."

According to a study cited in verywellhealth.com, SI Joint dysfunction is thought to account for between 15% and 30% of all lower back pain complaints.

From my 15 years of experience with it, I’ve learned that SI Joint Dysfunction isn’t just about the physical that I’ve explained above, and I've learned to incorporate a lot of key practices to help manage it including: