The BEST Sacroiliac Joint Exercises for Pain Relief (science-based)

So you have pain in your Sacroiliac Joint (aka SI Joint), right? I will walk you through a proven 3-step framework, including Sacroiliac Joint exercises, that will help you!

The coolest thing about this is that I will also give you 3 sample rehab programs for SI joint pain at the end of this article. This way you can easily do it by yourself and get started immediately.

If someone told you that your SI Joint is misaligned or dysfunctional, you should know that the current scientific evidence shows this isn’t true. But we’ll get into more detail in a moment.

Step 1: Understand the Problem

Say you believe in the misalignment or dysfunction of the SI joint. What is the logical consequence? Reposition the joint and/or get rid of the dysfunction.

What does the standard treatment option for this look like? Adjustments – aka your therapist tries to reposition your SI joint. How does that feel? Great! Does the pain get better? Sometimes. If it does: does the pain stay away? Rarely.

This results in you getting adjustments regularly. Until they don’t help anymore. What do you do then? You’re not only in pain, you also don’t know how to help yourself! Because you were dependent on the adjustments of your therapist.

That’s why it’s very helpful for you to have a better understanding of SI joint pain.

Let’s start with the basics first.

SI Joint Anatomy and Function

You need to know this to better understand why a dysfunction or misalignment isn’t really a thing.

So the sacroiliac joint consists of the pelvis (ilium) and the sacrum. That’s how it gets its name, the sacroiliac joint. It’s extremely well stabilized by ligaments, muscles, and fascia.

The pelvis connects to the lower body through the thighs and to the upper body via the spine. This connection explains what the sacroiliac joint does. Its main job is to transfer force between the lower and upper body.

A common myth is that therapists can see or feel a dysfunction or misalignment in your SI joint. Studies like the one by Palsson et al. (2019) have debunked this idea a few years back.

As mentioned, the SI joint is really well stabilized by ligaments, etc. That’s why it only has a range of motion of about 2.5°.

To even measure this tiny range of motion, you need super expensive lab equipment. It’s impossible to tell with just your hands or eyes.

Oh, and talking about “putting your joint back in the right position”:

There hasn’t been a single study to show that manipulation can change the position of the SI joint.

I know what you’re thinking: “But Gino, I’ve experienced it myself. I got adjusted and my pain went away!”

I understand your point! As I said: it is possible that manipulation helps. But it’s not because of a change in the joint’s position. For instance, Tullberg et al. (1998) showed that manipulating the SI joint reduced pain without affecting its position.

Why Does Your SI Joint Hurt?

There are countless reasons for pain in the SI joint. But the most obvious ones include:

• Direct trauma (like from a hit in contact sports such as ice hockey or football)
• Overuse (like suddenly running a lot more than usual or increasing your gym workload)
• Pregnancy
• Inflammatory conditions (like ankylosing spondylitis or psoriasis arthritis)
• But often, the cause is unknown.

I hope you now have a better understanding of the condition.

Now we can get into the exercises. You can now look at these from a different perspective. Because the goal of the exercises is neither to realign your SI joint nor to get rid of dysfunctions. We want to make sure they reduce your pain and build up your tolerance to load.

---

---

Step 2: Reduce Your Pain

With the exercises of this step, our goal is to reduce your pain.

This is a very critical step. Because if you know how to lower your pain, you’re less afraid of poking into it. And having a pain flare-up after exercise will be less scary as well.

Just try them out. See what feels good and reduces your pain. Skip anything that doesn’t.

Aim for 2-3 sets of 10 reps for dynamic exercises. For the stretches, I’d recommend 2-3 sets of 30 seconds. Since these exercises are easy, you can do them daily or even many times a day.

Once these exercises feel good and your symptoms improve to a comfortable level, you can move on to Step 3.

Step 3: Build Up Your Load Tolerance

Now that you have your pain under control, we want to start loading up that SI joint more. I like to start working with isometric bodyweight exercises. These are usually tolerated quite well.

Here, you can do 3 sets for 20-40 seconds each. If that goes well, move on to dynamic exercises like:

I usually recommend 3 sets of 10-20 reps for these. You’ve nailed this level and your pain continues to improve? Then you can start adding weight to the equation.

I prefer to start with bilateral exercises when people have SI joint pain. Bilateral in this case means that you use both legs at the same time. The people I’ve worked with over the years tend to tolerate those better. So here are my recommendations:

Then you can transition to single-leg variations like:

For these exercises, start with 3 sets of 15 reps. If that goes well, you can gradually increase the weight while reducing reps to 12, 10, 8, or fewer.

Sacroiliac Joint Exercises – Sample Programs

Conclusion & Next Steps

Your SI joint is most likely sensitive at the moment. No dysfunction or misalignment is going on there. Start with the exercises for symptom reduction. Then increase your load tolerance with progressive strength training.

I now want you to pick one of the programs I provided. And then get started immediately.

Please feel free to change up certain exercises. If you find alternatives that work better for you – great!

If you have an anterior pelvic tilt, I highly recommend reading this article.

---

---