Lumbopelvic sagittal standing posture associations with anthropometry, physical activity levels and trunk muscle endurance in healthy adults.
George A Koumantakis, Antonios Malkotsis, Stefanos Pappas and 4 others
PMID 34177201WHAT IT FOUND
Better abdominal endurance was associated with less lumbar lordosis in young adults, though the study was underpowered for this finding.
Sex influenced standing posture, but BMI, physical activity levels, and back muscle endurance showed no significant association with lumbopelvic alignment.
Key findings
01A significant negative correlation was found between lumbar curve angle and abdominal isometric endurance, indicating that higher abdominal endurance is associated with less lumbar lordosis.
02Sex significantly influenced both lumbar curve and sacral slope angles, with females exhibiting larger angles than males.
03No significant associations were identified between lumbopelvic posture and BMI, leisure-time physical activity, sitting hours per day, or paraspinal muscle endurance.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study population was restricted to young, healthy college students (median age 20), limiting generalizability to older adults or those with spinal pathology. The sample size was insufficient to achieve adequate statistical power (56%) for the key finding linking abdominal endurance to lumbar curve, requiring 170 participants for 80% power. Physical activity and sitting hours were self-reported, which may introduce recall bias. Anatomical landmarks for posture measurement were identified via palpation, a method with known reliability limitations. The cross-sectional design cannot establish cause-and-effect relationships between muscle endurance and posture.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest or funding sources were declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that abdominal training will reduce lumbar lordosis based on this study. The association was weak, the study was underpowered for this specific result, and the cross-sectional design cannot prove that increasing endurance changes posture.